


The Devil in the Details

by serialfangirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cannibalism, Crime mystery, F/M, Greenwich Mean Time is a fav and gave birth to this mess so like maybe this will also be good, Modern AU, Rare Pairings, a lot of romani talk actually, bratty 20 somethings, crime/mystery, gypsy!weasleys - Freeform, inspired by provocative-envy, nonmagical AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-04-13 07:04:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4512465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serialfangirl/pseuds/serialfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pansy Parkinson is London It Girl who has never had a true worry in her entire life. In fact, she is more than content to continue her flamboyant and boisterous take over of the London social scene -- with her credit card and friends in tow -- but an obsessive fan has drastically different plans. There's only one man the New Scotland Yard could put on her case, a celebrity in his own right -- DI Harry Potter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Creep Over There

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first long form fanfiction for any fandom. I've been working on it all summer long so I really hope some of you like it. Please let me know if you have any constructive criticism as I am still learning! 
> 
> Disclaimer: While I doubt anyone of importance would ever stumble across this trash, all rights to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I'm not making any profit off of this and if I were, it would probably be a lot better written.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the beginning! The beginning of an adventure marred trauma, uncertainty and stress. This adventure follows Pansy Parkinson -- half Asian, half white, full bratty -- and her equally wealthy and annoyingly spoiled group of friends. Enters Harry Potter -- a take-no-shit, so-some-harm Detective Inspector -- along with the brilliant paralegal Hermione Granger. As they work through the relentless stalking of a faceless man, they stumble upon murders and mysteries and maybe this entire ordeal has nothing to do with Pansy Parkinson at all.
> 
> Who is stalking Miss Parkinson?
> 
> What does this have to do with the Potter murders?
> 
> How is Harry Potter leading to the deaths of dozens of Romani youths?
> 
> Will Draco ever get his Rakı?
> 
> Find all the answers to your questions, _and more_ , within! Who lives, who dies, who unironically loves Lana Del Rey -- all these and porn!
> 
> This fic is nonmagical, modern AU, Hansy trash that you may or may not love. Either way, love me because I suffered through writing it, after all.

“-- and then he just left. Like, there we were, fucking tequila shots in hand, he just _bolted_. It was so bizarre and we still had his car and everything, _god knows_ where he went because he’s actually MIA, and _barefoot_ , for that matter--”

Daphne Greengrass had been talking for several minutes without taking a single breath in a way Pansy didn’t know was humanly possible. In fact, her best friend could go on and on and on and on about seemingly nothing in a way that would cause weaker women than Pansy to melt into a puddle at the sheer sound of it, but what are best friends good for if not grinning and bearing through a nineteen year-old socialite’s version of _The NeverEnding Story_? However, after what seemed like years the blonde’s convoluted storytelling, Pansy found herself drifting away, her level of interest diminishing with each passing _and, like_.

“--so at this point we were like, skinny dipping? _Why not_ \--”

“God, Daph, I stopped caring so long ago--”

“You _will_ care -- give it a second, I promise -- fuck, where was I? Right, so we’re in Athens now, everyone’s feeling totally fucked over by that German guy I mentioned before --”

Pansy allowed her mind to wander, after all paying attention was just a technicality for Daphne’s stories and she would continue talking even if Pansy picked up a crossword puzzle and was completely dead behind the eyes. It wasn’t as if she didn’t care about her Christmas break, usually she would eat up any gossip about a ski vacation involving a high stakes _ménage à trois_ between the Carrow twins and Vincent Crabbe but Pansy couldn't keep her eyes off a man sitting two tables down from them. It wasn’t as if she had caught him doing anything in particular but he looked so _familiar_ and he had been sitting in the restaurant for as long as they have but he hadn’t ordered anything and every time she looked away she could feel a pair of eyes on her, like an itching on the back of her neck.

“--obviously the second bottle of wine was a huge mistake but like, at the time it seemed pretty decent because, you know, everyone was so fed up because like, a tarantula, _really_? Never again, I’ll say that--”

“Daph,” Pansy exhaled with a tired whine. “I’ve lost the will to _go on._ ”

“-- and that’s not even the half of it -- wait, it’s getting really good -- after we literally, like, seriously, dealt with ten minutes of the capital B, capital S, he goes--”

Pansy rolled her eyes and sipped from her glass of her martini glass, which was shit, by the way, but she never expected much from Scottish gin. Daphne was already through her third glass which partly explained her incessant need to _monologue_ her to death, but Pansy dealt with it because the younger girl was so excitable and it was endearing and _cute_ , especially considering her relatively new status in London. The young heiress had been a pathetic little Bath girl just ten short months ago and while Pansy had been known her since they were children, they certainly weren’t as close as they are now. She was only three years older than her, but she has been living in the city since she was a girl, meaning she has proper seniority over the blonde and felt a sense of responsibility to make sure she doesn’t get lost on the subway or accidentally have sex with a less than reputable prick.

“---by the time we flew to Moscow -- oh, by the the way, that guy has _totally_ been following us -- I was pretty done with the whole--”

“ _What_?” Pansy made an inhuman sound.

“That guy?” Daphne stared at her with wide eyes and blinked twice before continuing, “the one you’ve been staring at for like, twenty minutes? Yeah, he was at the shops as well-- and the cafe before, too. Did you shag him, or something?”

Pansy opened her mouth to ask _why the fuck she didn’t mention it_ before but the ludicrousness of Daphne’s question caught her by surprise and she could only roll her eyes.

“No, I didn’t shag him, you idiot. How do you know he’s following us?”

“Either that or he _casually_ has the same errands as we do--”

Pansy snorted. She doesn’t do errands.

“-- but him being at the same places as us at the same time as us?” Daphne leaned forward and raising an eyebrow. “Proper _sus_ , Pans.”

“Right,” she answered with an drawn-out sigh. That’s exactly what she needed, a stalker to add to the small crowd of paparazzi following her around every Friday and Saturday night. She did well in the attention, obviously it was good for business, whatever business being a socialite was, but the 24-hour nature of the job did drain on her.

“I’ll text the coppers--”

“Police don’t _text_ , Daphne,” she snapped but Daphne returned with an unexpected glare.

“My father has a connection in the force, Pansy. I _know_ you can’t text 999, but I’ll get some Sergeants’ number directly.”

Pansy sighed and gave her younger friend a small smile because she really was an amazing mentor even if she gave her a difficult time.

“Daddy was talking about me getting a security guard after--”

“That’s _such_ a good idea--”

“ _God_ , I hate this place.”

A familiar arrogantly posh drawl reached her ears and Pansy’s head snapped upward, her eyes landing on a bored looking blond’s expensive yet pompous Ray Bans, a cigarette dangling from his thin lips. She gave Draco Malfoy a pointed look from behind her own large sunglasses.

“No one said you have to stay -- and especially not with the damn attitude.”

“I’m definitely not staying. I’ve been sent to _retrieve_ you two.”

“We’re not some abandoned handbag you can just--”

Draco ignored her and signalled for the overwhelmed waitress impatiently. Placing one hand against the barrier that divided the street and the outdoor seating of The Tramshed, Draco leaned forward and nabbed one of the olives destined for her martini straight off the rim of the glass.

“Back the fuck up, _Galadriel_ ,” Pansy said dryly, taking a sip from her violated glass.

“Thanks,” he replied with a falsely bright voice just as the waitress arrived.

“So sorry for the wait, Miss, what can I--”

“You _do_ realize boozy brunch only counts if it’s before noon?” he interrupted her with a smirk, that annoying smirk that he always gave her when he wanted to be clever, and blew a thin line of smoke into her direction. Pansy rolled her eyes, downed her drink and whipped her credit card for the waitress in seemingly one smooth motion, which would have been perfectly accented with a snarky retort had Draco not beat her to the punch and interrupted her in that annoying way he always did when he wanted to be a _prick_.

“I do expect you to class it up a bit today. I already saw enough pictures of last night to know that--”

“We’re not having boozy brunch, we’re day-drinking,” Pansy retorted, albeit later than she wanted to, and gestured at the glasses in front of him. “Do you see any mimosas here? Of course not, just appropriate lunchtime martinis and whether or not this is my third glass is irrelevant.”

Daphne visibly pursed her lips, diverting her eyes away from the couple. They bickered as if they were still dating, but even their short-lived secondary school romance wasn’t enough to explain the constant squabbling between the two. Daphne claimed Pansy enjoyed a sparring partner. Pansy insisted she’d enjoy Draco’s head in a toilet far more.

“We’re in our usual room--”

“ _Of course you fucking are_ \--”

“-- and if you’re not there in less than fifteen we’ll tell them not to let you in--”

“I dare you to--”

“Now, move your arse -- the boys are waiting and I’ve got an essay do tomorrow so I’d prefer if you didn’t waste my time.”

He flicked away his dead cigarette and turned on his heels to stalk away, Pansy’s reply coming a second too late.

“ _Prick_!” she shouted at his well-dressed back, only the best his Lord of a father could buy. The Malfoys were proper nobles, which explained Draco’s overbearing sense of superiority but also why his public record was spotless -- old money can buy amazing PR. And Lord Speaker Earl Lucius Malfoy and Countess Narcissa Malfoy obviously had some sort of theme going on -- Pansy couldn’t imagine either of them raising a Brad or a Sarah. No, Draco’s unique name fit his _‘I’m entirely too good for this interaction_ ’ attitude.

Regardless, Pansy occasionally liked having him around.

“Do you know where they are?” Daphne finally piped up -- Draco made the poor girl nervous.

“Where they always fucking are. We’re going to Camden Town, because my inconvenience is their greatest joy. ” she replied in a bored voice, snatching her credit card back from the waitress that approached their table once more. As they stood and collected their bags, Pansy’s eyes fell on the man two tables away again, just as he raised his hand and gave the universal gesture for check, please? Pansy glowered. “And Daph -- call your dad’s police friend. I’m annoyed and tired and done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired greatly by Provocative_Envy's Greenwich Mean Time! Everything she writes is gold and nothing I write will ever compare, but life is about creativity and expressing yourself, right? Or like, should I stop writing for forever? I mean, I worked really hard on this so please don't tell me to stop writing for forever, but also please give me constructive criticism to make me better.
> 
> Also, we're obviously diverging drastically from canon, but our characters are more or less the same! Everyone's nonmagical parallel should be explained rather well but let me know if the transition didn't go over as clearly as I thought it did!
> 
> Before this I posted a Lucius x Narcissa one-shot, but other than this this is my first and I really am desperate for any constructive criticism. I /know/ my biggest problem is run-on sentences and I'll try to get better about that as we move forward!
> 
> Sneak peak for next time:
> 
> _“-- and I need some good press. Now put your fuckin’ big boy pants on and get on the fuckin’ case, Potter.”_
> 
> _Harry James Potter, the New Scotland Yard poster child who pointed out his parents’ killer in a line up when he was six and thwarted an train bomber just three weeks into his police training and dated one of the up-and-coming female footballer of the last decade, had sunk down to the point of playing bodyguard for a socialite._


	2. Pussy Pansy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the second chapter in the beginning of the adventure! We still haven't been introduced to all of the characters that will define this story, nor have we had a good look at the real mystery that this is meant to be, but enjoy the modern, nonmagical fluff while you got it! It won't be fluffy for much longer.

“I _what_?”

“Fuckin’ hell, Potter, pay attention the first time ‘round, yeah?”

Commander Alastor Moody grunted for another moment, shuffling the papers on his desk the way he always did when he had to interact with other people on a human level. “The phone call we got about Pansy Parkinson this afternoon seemed like a serious threat. We want to put our best man on it. Congratulations, here’s the case of your career.”

“I don’t see how taking care of a rich girl’s overzealous fan can be the case of my career,” Harry gritted his teeth as he spoke. He shouldn’t have been surprised as the department regularly tossed him high profile cases like these due to his specific _circumstances_.

“Because I just said it was. Is that enough?” Moody snarled, slamming his hand against the desk though Harry didn’t give him the amusing jump back he expected from such an action.

“So some teenager calls in saying her best friend, heiress Pansy Parkinson, has been stalked all day long by one lone bloke and you’re putting your ‘best man’ on the case?”

“Exactly. Now, take some fucking notes because I’m not sayin’ this again,” Moody tossed an open folder in front of him and jabbed a harsh finger into the first line. “She says she thinks she’s seen him before. He knew where they were even after several trips about the city. More importantly -- Finnigan accidentally set another drifter on fire--”

“ _Accidentally_?”

“-- and I need some good press. Now put your fuckin’ big boy pants on and get on the fuckin’ case, Potter.”

Harry James Potter, the New Scotland Yard poster child who pointed out his parents’ killer in a line up when he was six and thwarted an train bomber just three weeks into his police training and dated one of the up-and-coming female footballer of the last decade, had sunk down to the point of playing bodyguard for a socialite.

 _Great_.

“This’ll be an open and shut case, Potter. Question the girl, tail her for a bit, and nab the guy. It’ll be annoying for about two days then you’ll be done with it.”

“It’s _the girl_ I’m not looking forward to.”

“You’ll be _fine_ , you know how these posh kids are--”

“I didn’t _choose_ to go to that school--”

“Regardless,” Moody lifted a hand and waved Harry away, his telltale signal when he was done with a conversation, “move that boarding school arse out of my off and get it to Chelsea. _Today_ , Potter.”

Harry’s chair screeched against the floor as he pushed back, “Open and shut case, yeah?” and said nothing else to his commanding officer as he left his office.

\----------------------

Pansy’s five-inch stilettos, entirely too inappropriate for a Sunday afternoon but she liked being tall, clicked loudly against the tile flooring as she made her way to the private room at Farrow and Bell that her friends always requested. Originality and spontaneity were _lost_ on them.

As she entered the room, Daphne no more than two steps behind her, her eyes immediately fell on Marcus Flint and she had to physically, forcibly, restrain her groan though she shouldn’t have been surprised to see him, in all honesty. Marcus was the one night stand that wouldn’t _die_. She had slept with him two years prior but he didn’t leave the morning after, nor the morning after that, and eventually he had hung around long enough to meet her so-called friends who promptly adopted him like the professional rugby player they had always wanted. Now she was stuck with him. There was no getting rid of the 6’1, 96 kilos behemoth of a man who, once you got him alone and drunk, would not stop talking about his cats, _Gus and Chester,_ and how much better _Dance Moms_ became after series three.

Pansy dutifully ignored him and purposefully made her way towards the empty seat beside Blaise. Her close friend was a stunning and immaculately dressed -- in a “I don’t give a fuck” white tee shirt and torn black jeans, but with the precision that fucking screamed ‘ _my mother is an internationally renowned ex-model and fashion designer_ ’ -- dark-skinned man and he smirked at her with a freshly made gin and tonic in his hand that seemed to call for her.

“Blaise,” she exhaled as she sunk next to him. “I needed you about fifteen hours ago,” she whined, taking the drink from his hand and leaning back into the softness of her chair. “Today’s been total shit--”

“ _Hey_ \--”

“No offense, Daph, but _seriously_ ,” Pansy sighed and laid her head on Blaise’s shoulder, he merely chuckled as she retold the story of her stalker and Draco’s unnecessary interruption. Theo Nott, the obvious product of an aged banker and his second Asian trophy as opposed to Pansy, whose mother had been her father’s third Asian trophy wife, seemed to be the only person actually paying attention. While the thin, quiet boy rarely spoke, when he did it was fucking worth it because that scrawny introvert saw and knew everything. There was no pulling the wool over his eyes. While outwardly it seemed like the antisocial wallflower was out of place in their merry band of egotistical rich brats, he was more than comfortable nestled tightly between the meat head and the queer.

God, they were all pricks.

“Well, I got the cops on the case,” Daphne grinned and closed her shockingly pink lips around her straw, sucking up some of her melted ice. “They’re going to call me back and get all Pansy’s information and catch the perv and throw him in like, Guantanamo Bay.”

“Is he a perv?” Draco turned to look a Pansy with a look of amusement. “Pining after our dear Pansy, as if a drink and a slap on the bum wouldn’t be enough to--”

“Oh, fuck off!”

Blaise pressed his lips into together in an attempt to stifle his chuckles but Pansy noticed the telltale sign of his shoulders shaking and his fingers tapping against his leg.

“Like,” his bottom lip quivered slightly as he contained his laughter. “ _Pliant_ Pansy.”

Pansy’s elbow stuck out and dug into his side but the damage was already done and had spread to the rest of her friends as well.

“Pliable Pansy,” Draco continued with a smirk, gesturing at Marcus with a sharp nod of the head.

“Oh, _Putty_ Pansy.”

“That’s a weak one, Marcus--”

“Procuress Pansy?” Theo offered in a quiet voice, though the smirk on his face was loud enough to telegraph his amusement at the situation.

“Pissed Pansy!” Daphne quipped, earning a glare from the brunette. Of all the friends to betray her.

“You all can fuck right off-”

“Paltry Pansy!”

“ _Pussy_ Pansy!”

“--shove it up your--”

“Porno Pansy--”

“--shit-eating _fucks_ can just--”

“Profane Pansy.”

“Prostitute--”

“ _Jesus Christ,_ ” Pansy shot up to her feet and stalked towards the door, trying to glare at her friends at the same time but failing, but trying anyway because fuck them.

“Wait, wait, alight” Draco wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her down next to him, throwing his arm around her shoulder once she was done. “ _Paramour_ Pans--”

“ _Fucker_ ,” she hissed, stealing his drink with a scowl.

“Come on, Pans. We’re only teasing,” Blaise sent her a small smile but Pansy responded by sticking out her tongue, possibly the most ineffective and childish retort, but it was all she had.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting sensitive, Pansy.”

“Of course not,” she spat back at Theo, who in all honestly probably didn’t deserve her wrath but she couldn’t spend all her time glaring at Blaise and Draco. They  would only smirk in response because of course she’ll get over it but that doesn’t mean she can get annoyed, “but how fair is it was Draco can shag his way through Oxford--”

“Well--” Draco attempted to protest

“--and Blaise can expose almost every single Greek island to chlamydia--”

“That’s not--”

“And yet I’m _Pussy_ Pansy? That’s slut-shaming, you know. Proper anti-feminism shit.”

“Want to go to Starbucks and start a blog about it?” Draco drawled and Pansy nearly snorted.

 _Nearly_.

She wasn’t about to give Draco the satisfaction of amusing her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're starting to get the feeling that maybe these aren't the nicest people, that's kind of the point. Harry Potter and Pansy Parkinson are both fairly closed minded in their worldview, but not just that, they're rather selfish and egotistical as well. The fact is, while Pansy has had everything handed to her since she was a born and she bathes in the lavish outcomes of her celebrity, Harry has been primed to join the New Scotland Yard in a similar way. He's used to a certain kind of treatment and he had some prejudices about Pansy and her ilk that you will see come to light upon their first interaction.
> 
> Sneak peak:
> 
>  
> 
> _Parkinson dropped her hands by her sides and gave him a curious look, one that made Harry thing she was literally sizing him up -- taking in every single detail of his wrinkled, coffee stained button up, his scuffed work boots, ruffled hair and scratched up glasses -- and formulating her assessment on the stop. In the two or three seconds of silence, Harry felt completely and totally under scrutiny and he instinctively straightened his spine and hardened his own glare because Pansy Parkinson was accustomed to people feeling less than her and feeling uncomfortable under her analyzing stare, but Harry refused to give her the fucking satisfaction._


	3. Fucking Public Servants

Harry had been waiting next to the doorman outside of Parkinson’s building for the better part of twenty minutes before he gave in. He had called the number Moody provided from him several times to no avail but the attentive man at the door refused to let him in without the clear permission of a tenant from the building. That alone was enough to irritate him to no end but especially after waiting by her door like an insignificant delivery man, Harry decided he had had enough of this for one day and was in the middle of sending a message to Hermione to meet him for coffee when a group of loud, laughing voices caught his attention.

Pansy Parkinson walked as if she was art in the making. In fact, they all strolled along as if they were walking straight off of a magazine spread. Parkison and five other equally wealthy looking 20-somethings turned the corner and began walking towards her building and she looked exactly as she did in the gossip rags -- wearing strappy heels that looks far too uncomfortable compared to the relative ease she was walking with, a long skirt that just showed off her ankle, though it was oddly paired with a top that showed off an awful lot of cleavage and her midriff was being shown off in a way that rose up above her navel when she ran her hand to run through her long, black hair in mid-laugh. The tall young blonde next to her, who wasn’t wearing heels but was still taller than Parkinson by a centimeter or two, looked familiar and Harry assumed it was because they graced a magazine cover or two together. Harry immediately recognized Marcus Flint, who stuck out like a muscular multi-million euro sore thumb, and Draco Malfoy, who stood slightly to the side of the group but looked just as pompous as he did standing next to his father in the papers. The other two, a smaller brown-haired boy and a tall, lean black man with the darkest, smoothest skin he had ever seen, looked unfamiliar, but strode with a similar kind of self-confident wealth.

“Miss Parkinson, I’m--”

Harry began walking towards the group, his hand extended but Parkinson abruptly stopped short, her hands held up as if the last thing she wanted to do was shake his hand. Harry’s jaw tightened.

“This is my _home._ Can I get a fucking moment of rest?” she spat, pushing her large sunglasses into her hair and giving Harry one of the most disgusted looking glares he had ever seen on a person, though it looked so flawlessly practiced on her face that it made him wonder how often Parkinson interacted with normal people who weren’t solely serving her food or opening her doors.

“ _DI_ Harry Potter,” he finished bitterly, his green eyes shining behind his glasses.

Parkinson dropped her hands to her hips and gave him a curious look, one that made Harry feel like she was literally sizing him up -- taking in every single detail of his wrinkled, coffee stained button up, his scuffed work boots, ruffled hair and scratched up glasses -- and formulating her assessment on the spot. In the two or three seconds of silence, Harry felt completely and totally under her scrutiny and he instinctively straightened his spine and hardened his own glare because Pansy Parkinson was accustomed to people feeling less than her and feeling uncomfortable under her analyzing stare, but Harry refused to give her the fucking satisfaction. He had spent his life under scrutiny and one stare from an overly privileged socialite was not nearly enough to make him buckle. “I’ve been assigned to your case.”

“Of course,” she answered swiftly, glancing at her friends over her shoulders. “Daphne and the boys were just joining me for breakfast--”

“But it's four pm--”

“-- but they wouldn’t mind just holding tight for a bit. This won’t take more than ten minutes, I’m assuming?”

“Well, I have quite a few questions--”

“Great!” Pansy clapped her hands together and gestured at the doorman as she walked past Harry and into the building. “I’m on the 7th floor.”

The wait for the elevator and the subsequent ride up was awkward enough. Harry tried not to notice the faces Draco Malfoy made towards the short, brunette boy -- various iterations of crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue -- while the black guy rolled his eyes and nudged at the blonde girl every so often. Pansy ignored the entire ordeal and merely stared at Harry, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrows slightly knitted together. Harry responded in kind, his hands hidden in his pockets but his eyes remained steadily locked with hers because he knew she was playing some kind of game, some kind of intimidation game and he wouldn’t give in because a rich girl was the least troubling thing he had ever come in contact with.

The elevator finally _dinged_  at her floor and Harry tried to seem unsurprised at the fact that the doors opened directly into her flat -- if such a meager word could describe what Pansy Parkinson called home. It was more or less the grandest studio flat he had ever stepped into. After a short corridor lined in classic and abstract looking statues, three of the tall white-peachy walls were covered tastefully in avant-garde or art deco -- Harry never did know the difference -- paintings and the fourth wall was simply floor-to-ceiling windows which led to a decently-sized balcony that looked over the clean Chelsea streets. He could partly see Pansy’s four-poster bed, draped from above in a sheer white linen, undone and covered with discarded clothing but it, along with an antique looking bureau, were largely covered by folding screen and directly across from it was essentially a kitchenette and a counter top island.

Harry stopped just short of dropping to the living area, which seemed as if it was dug into the very floor of her flat and he needed to take three steps down to sit on the three-sided couch that lined part of the embedded square.

“Miss Parkinson--” Harry cleared his throat.

“Can I get you anything? Sparking water? Tea? Vodka?”

“Er-- no. I just want to get to the questions--”

“Pansy playing the hostess,” Draco drawled. “Very cute.”

“Fuck off,” Pansy said in the same tone most people inquire about the weather with. As her friends piled into the sofa across the Harry, Pansy stood at the edge and looked down at the group, one hand gripping a side table while the other worked on the straps of her heel. “Questions, then. What is this, an interrogation? The real perv’s out there you know.”

“No, I need some information to start the investigation on the right foot--”

“Oh, sounds real legit, Pans,” the blonde girl, who Harry was becoming increasing certain was more or less 15 years old, clapped her hands twice and grinned at Harry. Parkinson smirked and when she finally kicked both heels off, he was surprised to see her feet looked relatively pink and normal and not deformed the slightest bit considering the death traps she pranced around in, she leapt down into the seating area. She was quite a bit… smaller than he imagined.

“It’s a fairly open and close case, to be honest,” Harry pushed up his glasses and began flipping through his short notebook. “Stalker cases like these -- just have to wait for him to turn up where you usually are.”

“Open and shut case,” Pansy repeated.

“Exactly.”

She remained silent opened a false book in the coffee table between them, pulled out a silver case of pre-rolled cigarettes and took one out while throwing the case across the space to Malfoy, who caught it with ease.

“Go on then,” she said through a muffled voice as she lit her cigarette. “With the questions.”

Harry spared one more glance to the five others staring at him but then he turned his attention to his notebook. “When is the first time you noticed him following you?”

“This morning? I don’t know,” Pansy blew smoke through her nose and shrugged. “His face was just so familiar. Like he’s always fucking been there, you know?”

“Anything more specific than that?”

“I’m 21, rich and famous, Potter. I don’t bother to keep track of my fucking fanatics.”

Harry tried not to roll his eyes as crossed that question off of his list, her answer being completely useless for him. He ignored Malfoy's snigger as he continued, “Right. Did he come across as dangerous to you at all?”

“Besides _stalking_ me, you mean?”

“Well you have so many of them -- what’s the point of calling us about one fucking bloke?”

Pansy opened her mouth and immediately closed it again, electing to take a long drag from her cigarette rather than giving Potter the satisfaction of seeing her growing annoyance. She didn’t know how to explain the feeling of sheer _fear_ at seeing the man’s face throughout a whole day of moving around London, only to realize how utterly fucking familiar it was. Just thinking about it made her feel like she was going insane, like she was describing fucking witchcraft and there was no other way to explain it -- the way her skin crawled when she noticed him, her innards contracting on themselves, her skin erupting into goosebumps, she simply _felt_ in danger.

“Does it matter? You have to do your fucking job anyway.”

“Alright,” Harry felt anger simmer beneath the surface but he wouldn’t be a good detective if he let his emotions get in the way of a case -- even a bullshit one like this. “Does it seem like he’s working with any--”

“How the fuck would I--”

“Miss Parkinson, I’m trying to help you--”

“Well, a damn executioner would do a better job, thanks.”

“Jesus fucking--”

“What, not used to live victims?”

“Oh, I’ve dealt with plenty of lives ones, I just wouldn't call you a victim-- more like a publicity stunt--”

“I get the feeling this isn’t really how policing is done.”

Theo’s low voice cut through their bickering like a knife slicing through butter and Pansy’s next retort immediately died in her throat. Her focus fell on her friends again, then the three inches of ash delicately hanging onto to the end of her dead cigarette, then back at Potter, whose faced was flushed because she could only assume he had never been called out for lack of professionalism before. _Good_. Serves him right for treating her case like it was beneath him.

“Right, Miss Parkins--”

“Just,” Pansy held out a hand, closing her eyes and taking a breath because fuck this, “next question.”

She heard Potter flipping through his stupid little detective notebook then the unmistakable sound of a lighter being flicked on and burning the end of a cigarette. When she opened her eyes, Draco tossed her the silver case.

“Any angry customers of your father’s lately?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she exhaled a thin line of smoke.

“Any weird messages or packages?”

“No.”

“Do you frequent the same places?”

Pansy hummed before answered, her lips tightening around the thin cigarette as she took a breath in. “Just around with these prats,” she gestured dismissively at the other couch. “Marcus, Daph and I live in Chelsea. Blaise lives in Camden Town because he likes to pretend to be poor--”

“ _Fuck off_ \--”

“Draco lives near campus at Oxford but when he graces us commoners with his presence every weekend, he lives near Theo in Kensington.”

Harry nodded and scribbled the neighborhoods into his notebook but he could fucking believe the lives these people lived. While he was more then happy in Greenwich, and the concept of wealth never truly bothered him, he had seen and experiences both sides up rather up close and personal, he was astonished at how oblivious they were to their own wealth.

“So you stay more or less to the West--”

“Unless we’re traveling -- Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, whatever. But traveling is a hassle and I like being home.”

“Have you angered anyone lately, Miss Parkinson?”

“I have a twitter account, Detective Potter,” she rolled her eyes and stamped her cigarette out in the ashtray in front of her before swiftly lighting another. “I piss off thousands of arseholes every single day.”

Harry didn’t bother to stifle his snort this time, resulting in a tense silence from the dark haired socialite sitting across from him.

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, I’m obviously jealous of a--”

“A what?”

“Miss Parkinson--”

“A _what_?”

“A vapid, bored, oblivious socialite--”

“Okay, I think we’re finished,” Pansy slammed her hands down on her thighs and looked straight ahead, her eyes locking with Daphne, who looked guilty, as she should be, and purposefully ignoring the look of pure fucking delight on Draco.

Harry massaged the bridge of his nose. He had crossed the line of professionalism and he knew it, but there was no stepping back now. “Parkinson,” he sighed though she still didn’t look at him. “This is just an amateur stalker. It’s an open and shut case and I’ll have it done by the end of the week.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she whipped her head around just as Harry stood to look for the door in which he came which could fucking hit in on the way out for all she was concerned -- the pretentious, self-righteous prick couldn’t care less about her safety and she couldn’t care less about his concern and he could actually  _shove it_  because some part of her expected exactly this. Fucking public servants.

Pansy stood abruptly, though it came a few seconds too late to have any effect, and walked towards her small kitchenette with the dying cigarette between her lips.

Harry dug around in his breast pocket and placed a small white card on her island as he passed her. “Give me a call if you have any more information about your case,” and she sneered at his back as he left.

Yeah, _fucking public servants._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sneak peak:
> 
> _“Wait, wait, wait -- **god** , Theo -- Blaise, say that again,” Pansy dropped her arms suddenly and walked around the coffee table, the empty bottle of rum being kicked aside as she did so._
> 
>  
> 
> _“He’s got a fucking Wikipedia page. ‘Harry Potter, twenty-five, was orphaned at the age of six when a serial killer who preyed on the poor gypsy communities murdered his parents one night while they were in their beds._


	4. Under Mr. Potter's Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, welcome back! 
> 
> In this chapter you will meet Hermione Granger, get to know the _real_ Harry Potter, and really dissect exactly what Petey Pablo was getting at in his 2003 classic hit "Freek-a-Leek." 
> 
> Hint: it ain't about the Alliums.

“You would fucking hate her, Hermione. She’s the anti- _you_. Like that receptionist you hate--”

“ _Romilda Vane_ ,” she seethed, her fists visibly tightening around her coffee cup.

“--expect worse because she just prances around with her little bag worth more than three months in our flat--”

“You know she whispers _Virgo_ every time I walk by?”

“--absolutely ignorant of anything going on around her--”

“--no sense. She could whisper _pink elephants tap dance to Mozart_ and that would make more fucking sense--”

“--and her little posse, they’re god damn carbon copies of each other--”

“--giggles all around the office, can’t get one second of work done while she’s flirting her little arse away--”

“Hermione, I hate it when you do that,” Harry suddenly cut himself off and shot her a glare. Hermione responded with a well-practiced look of innocence.

“Do what?”

“That thing where--”

“Interrupt you?”

“--pretend you’re the only--”

“ _Like this_?”

Harry’s lips snapped together again and his glare intensified. “I’m beginning to understand why Ron left you.

Hermione’s mouth fell open, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Low blow, Potter!”

“What? Too soon?” Harry smirked and dodged a sugar packet she threw his way. Hermione had been upset about her breakup with their mutual friend Ron Weasley for about five minutes a year ago before she was distracted by her exams. Once she dug herself out from under her medium-sized mountain of work, she had been rather unfazed. It was remarkable, actually, how she managed to compartmentalize her life. Rather unnatural as well.

He downed the rest of his coffee and slapped two pounds onto the counter. “Right, lovely chat, Hermione. Dinner tonight?”

“Not so fast, I want to know more about your--”

“Not Mexican again. Bye!”

“ _Potter_!”

\----------------------------

“Yeah, a prick!” Daphne chimed in, tripping over a discarded wedged heel as she made her way to the sofa.

“A self-righteous prick at -- _hic_ \-- that!” Pansy continued before lifting the nearly empty bottle of Captain Morgan’s to her lips again.

“Very unpleasant,” Theo agreed in the mild-mannered British way he did. Daphne giggled as she plopped down next to him and dropped her head onto his shoulder. She wiggled back and forth in her seat to the loud music and Theo responded with a rigid up and down arm movement.

Theo rarely joined the three of them, including Blaise, on their nights in but when he did Pansy could see the enjoyment in his otherwise plain, brown eyes. He was such a sweet boy, but he definitely needed to stop changing the shuffle when Petey Pablo’s _Freek-a-Leek_ came on because Pansy saw no other way she could sneak in a butt-shaking session that night. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t understand the names was were listed in the song and whether or not they were real people and what kind of name was _Shaniqua_ anyway because it completely missed the point.

“ _Earring in her tongue_ just doesn’t make any sense!” he raised his voice over the music as Pansy pulled him to his feet. “Piercing in her tongue makes more sense and it would still --”

“ _Shut up_ , Nott,” she groaned as she bent over and shook her hips against his bony pelvis.

“Definitely not the point!” Blaise agreed from his spot on the other sofa, his head dangling over its arm. “What’s that DI’s name again?”

“Harry Potter!” Pansy shouted, turning around and throwing her arms over Theo’s shoulders and swaying back and forth while he placed his hands respectfully high on her waist.

“And he keeps saying they have so many options but only offers anal and vaginal penetration. _And_ he refuses to reciprocate oral--”

“His name sounds real bloody familiar, doesn’t it?” Blaise continued. He swung his feet around and reached across the table for his computer before falling silent and tapping away at the keys.

“Yeah, I remember hearing it before too!” Daphne agreed, but Pansy wasn’t paying attention as she did a slow twirl in front of Theo.

“--meanwhile the girl is asking _how do_ you _like it_ which is clearly all Pablo is interested in--”

“--in a new article from like, twenty years ago--”

“--obviously not a generous lover--”

“--holy shit, remember that kid who solved his parents’--”

“-- _Potter_? Wait, do you remember--”

“--plying her with an irresponsible array of drugs then--”

“Wait, wait, wait -- _god_ , Theo -- Blaise, say that again,” Pansy dropped her arms suddenly and walked around the coffee table, the empty bottle of rum being kicked aside as she did so.

“He’s got a fucking Wikipedia page. ‘Harry Potter, twenty-five, was orphaned at the age of six when a serial killer who preyed on the poor gypsy communities murdered his parents one night while they were in their beds while a young Potter hide in the closet. He later accurately picked him out in a police line up as an older man who suspiciously came by their van earlier that day’ -- _holy shit_ ,” Blaise continued to scroll down the page, his eyes flicking back and forth. “He’s a fucking _saint_. ‘Potter thwarted a bombing attempt on the Victoria Line six years ago when he stopped three men carrying a large duffle bag that was later discovered to have a pressure cooker bomb--’”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Daphne gushed.

“He’s a gypsy?” Theo asked with a confused look, though Pansy thought it made complete sense and she didn’t bother to correct him with the politically correct term for the Romani people, lest she be accused of starting a social justice blog again.

“Jesus Christ,” Pansy rolled her eyes and plopped down onto the coffee table, folding her legs beneath her. The last thing she needed was a celebrity DI with a fucking savior complex.

“He’s a proper hero, Pans!”

“Or really lucky,” Theo offered, cracking the seal on another bottle of rum and taking a swig before handing it off to Pansy. She accepted it graciously.

“He dated Ginny Weasley--”

“--she made a goal at the junior Olympics a few years back!” Daphne exclaimed and Pansy groaned again.

“Try to keep that tongue in your mouth, yeah, Daph?” she said in a bored voice, though she regretted it when Daphne’s face fell and she leaned back against the sofa. Blaise shot her a look but Pansy pretended she didn’t see it.

“Rumors say they split after cheating allegations,” he finished before closing her computer.

“Not-so saintlike, then,” Pansy smirked.

“Didn’t say _who_ did the cheating,” he countered but Pansy rolled her eyes.

“He’s a prick and a prick is a prick, no matter the context.”

“I mean,” Theo looked as if he was struggling over his next words though she knew exactly what he was going to say before it came out. “You could have been nicer.”

Pansy threw her head back and let out a groan, rising to her feet and throwing her hands in the air. “I’m the one suffering here, you realize that? I’m being stalked and… and… who _knows_ what he wants to do with me! I could be abducted tomorrow, you know.”

“Don't be dramatic--”

“I can be as dramatic as I want, Blaise. Fucking suck it, yeah?”

Pansy threw herself onto the sofa beside Daphne and laid down to place her head on her friends’ lap. As if receiving some kind of signal, Daphne’s hands immediately began playing with her hair, her nails lightly scraping past her forehead as her fingers threaded through the loose knots and Pansy sighed into the pleasant feeling.

“Either way, he said it’ll be done by the end of the week and then you just have to worry about the other dozen or so creeps obsessed with you.”

“It never stops, does it?” she muttered, her eyes closing for a moment before snapping open again.

“I just got a _brilliant_ idea.”

She flew into sitting position and grabbed the silver case of cigarettes. She placed one between her lips and fumbled with her lighter as her other hand swiped Daphne’s cellphone from the table.

“Hey--”

“Just wait,” Pansy said with a grin around her cigarette. She pulled out Potter’s detective card from her pocket and dialed the cellphone number.

“Pansy,” Theo started with a warning tone but she ignored it in favor of the grin on Blaise's face.

“Wait, wait, tell him you’re being mugged--”

“No, you’re trapped in the boot of someone’s car--”

“ _Shh_ ,” she hissed as the phone rang loudly in her ear. She glanced at the digital clock above her stove and grinned because 2:30 am was the perfect time to wake up a busy DI on a Sunday.

“ _This is Potter_.”

Pansy pressed her lips together when his groggy voice came from the receiver.

“Mr. Potter?” she whispered in the most childlike voice she could muster.

“Ah -- yes? Hello, who is this?” she could picture him shifting in his bed, aimlessly grabbing those god awful glasses from his nightstand and fumbling to flip open his stupid little notebook.

"I'm scared."

"Hi-- hello, yes. It's alright -- what's your name?"

“Sarah,” she whispered.

“Yes -- yes, Sarah, is it? How old are you?” there was another pause and Pansy heard more background noise, maybe the flick of a lamp, the scratching of a pencil, a sigh. “How did you get my number, Sarah?”

“I’m _trapped!"_  she stage-whispered, her eyes glanced around the room and Daphne’s slapped her hand over her mouth while Blaise and Theo both shared a glance of amusement.

Harry sounded more rushed on the other end and Pansy held the phone away from her ear to take a long drag from her cigarette. When she put it back, she could hear the obvious sounds of Harry getting ready, there was water running in the back around and then, seemingly out of no where, the slight background sound of a female voice.

“--still there? Hello, Sarah?”

“Yes, yes,” Pansy remembered what she was doing. “I’m still trapped.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yes… I’m under a bed, I think?”

“Your own bed, Sarah? Are you hiding?”

“No, not my bed…” Pansy closed her eyes tight as her bottom lip shook with laughter. “Did you check under your bed tonight, Mr. Potter?”

“I-- _what_?” an unintelligible string of swears and curses came from the other end and Pansy couldn’t contain her laughter for another moment. Harry stayed on the other end for one more moment before abruptly hanging up.

They called him six more times that night, left four messages and sent him twenty-three text messages because fuck public servants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to comment with any thoughts or constructive criticism. We're all still learning here, amirite? The next chapter really puts this mystery on a roll, also, I think. I mean, I didn't know how much set up I needed to give but like, I'm done and have the ball rolling next chapter.
> 
> Also, I don't know about posting one chapter a week (though I obviously posted the first three at once to ~entice) because the chapters are so short but they don't go together well enough to just put a couple chapters together into one huge chapter. I mean, I guess I don't really know what I'm doing anyway, but I was thinking about maybe posting every three days? 
> 
> Anyway, please let me know if anyone has any thoughts! 
> 
> :D
> 
> Sneak peak:
> 
> _“One second, big boy,” she muttered, trying to nudge the dress down again._
> 
> _“You’ve been teasing me all night,” and he sounded like he was whining and suddenly Pansy lost the will to **go on** like, why did she keep doing this to herself? It was never fun and all she ever got were hangovers and guilt and bad press and warts that one time --_
> 
> _“You said we have all night,” she cooed, dropped her hand to cup the side of his face._


	5. The Viktor Krum Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome to chapter five, i hope you enjoy your stay. In this chapter we get an in-depth look at the life of a London socialite by the name of Pansy Parkinson and how awesome it is but also how it may suck. 
> 
> Additionally, please remember to comment with constructive criticism! From grammar to illogical plot points, I'm desperately trying to learn! I'm still looking for a beta if anyone is willing to comb through this trash.

Harry wasn’t interested in revenge, he wasn’t so petty. In fact, after he took out his battery and fell asleep again that night, he nearly forgot about the entire thing.

 _Nearly_.

He insisted that he had to, under the pretense that Pansy’s safety was of the utmost importance, which was _true_ in its own way, order two plainclothes officers to follow her at all times. The fact that the officers were Finnigan and Finch-Fletchy were beside the point.

“I’ll have your head, Potter,” Pansy’s garbled voice came through the phone. Harry could hear the hangover dripping from her tone and suddenly Harry felt a lot less guilty than he had before because girls like her could get drunk and happy and mindless no matter what they were subjected to. “Your two _idiots_ tried following me into the bathroom and--”

“That was an oversight,” Harry interrupted quickly, tucking the phone between his chin and shoulder as he collected his third, or maybe fourth, cup of coffee then moved to drop down next to Hermione in their usual booth in their regular diner. “I told them not to take their eyes off you and my men like to be thorough--”

“Your sex life is _none_ of my concern--”

“--considering your _lifestyle_ I thought it best to reel you in a little during my investigation--”

“-- _investigation_ shouldn’t be interrupting my life!”

“Your life could very well be on the line, Pansy,” Harry said with false sincerity, earning an eye roll from Hermione which he dutifully ignored because he didn't need her self-righteous guilt trip _right_ at that moment. “You’ll thank me when I have this case licked in two days. I’ve been pulling the video footage from the last time you noticed him following you. I’ll call you if I have anything.”

“Potter--”

“Bye!”

“Harry--”

“ _Hermione_ ,” Harry groaned letting his head fall back against the head of his seat. “If this is a lecture, I’d rather not hear it. She’s unbearable. You’d know that if you met her.”

"Believe me, I know. I'm about ten hours into the truckload of paperwork her father is forcing the Crown Prosecution Service through, but we're _public servants_ , Harry--"

"-- and she reminds me of that as often as possible!"

“Still, pushing your duties onto _Finnigan_ of all people can be considered cruel and unusual punishment," she gave him a pointed look -- the kind of look that Harry knew meant he would be definitively proven wrong in about two days, though he still didn't care and he never really did, "you know, he accidentally lit his last charge on fire.”

\-----------

The two plainclothesmen didn’t last four hours with Pansy. Having attended a secluded boarding school since she was eleven, the only person better at evading authority was Draco Malfoy himself and thus, by midnight Pansy was in a short, glittery dress and her arm draped around the broad shoulders of her attractive catch of the night. She could hear Theo's annoyingly cautious and omniscient voice in the back of her head -- warning her not to irritate Potter to the point of ignoring her case because she still had no idea who was following her or if he was a threat -- but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind because if _Pansy Parkinson_ worried about every single overzealous fanboy in her life, she would never get a wink of sleep. Besides, there were more important things in the world, such as the English-as-a-second-language, ruggedly handsome Bulgarian football player who has been plying her with drinks all night, and the tiny white screens following her every move.

“Your grinding technique is lame!”

“Vhat?”

“I said your technique is _**lame**_!”

“ _V_ _hat_?”

“I _SAID_ \-- oh, fuck it, just --” she held up her empty glass and waggled it in front of the anonymous man she had spent the last twenty minutes rubbing her arse against. He grinned annoyingly, signaled for the bartender then proceeded to shout  _far to close to her ear_ for another pair of vodka tonics.

Pansy nearly asked him to double the order.

She plastered a smile on her face and leaned forward to grip his bicep, then he responded by taking that as permission to encircle his arm around her waist and pull her closer -- closer than she had intended him to be -- but it hardly mattered because she could see the dozens of cellphones in the crowd surrounding her; taking her picture, posting their statuses, maybe coming up with some unoriginal and not-at-all-funny hashtag to show off the fact that they were _omigod in the same club as Pansy Parkinson_! Then maybe some two-bit celebrity blogger would retweet them and suddenly, just like that, _they’ve_ _made it_ into the dredges of humanity and it was only up from there, _baby_! She had such a hard time mustering the energy to even  _care._ For all she knew she was being chased by a crazed sociopath bent on gifting the world with her _death_ , but every time she wanted to give up on this lifestyle, let go of the latest arm that was twice the size of her neck, kick off her heels, and retreat back home to the apartment she wasted _far_ too much money on compared to the amount of time she spent there, Pansy remembered the  _tiny white screens_ and every single word that will be published about her outfit, her tits, her hair, her attitude, her shoes, her fucking  _waist line_ tomorrow morning. And maybe it was worth it. Maybe one more drink, one for bloke, one more dick, one more night of disappointment, maybe it would all be  _worth it._ _  
_

Pansy quickly swiped her refreshed drink and sucked up most of it before he even began his -- after all she had a party girl reputation to live up to and these tweets don’t write themselves.

“Slow down, baby, ve have all night long,” he grinned, his hand dangerously close to the small of her back and his breath dangerously close to her face and her vomit dangerously close to the point of no return.

“This is the least fun I’ve had in my entire life.”

“Vhat?”

She smiled innocently and kissed him, her tongue immediately slipping between his lips and her hands going to his hair, as if it was the most _amazing_ kiss she had ever had in her entire life and _god_ she could also read the blogs tomorrow morning. A football player from Bulgaria -- _that_ was an interesting story in itself and though she wouldn’t read the trash, she was sure Daphne would tell her all about it and who had called her a slut and who had called her out of control and who had complimented her dress and who had called her _fat_ \--

“You are so gorgeous,” he said against her lips in that shitty Bulgarian accent she hated.

“I _know_.”

“Vhat?”

“I said where's your  _ **home**?"_

Oh, that he had heard perfectly fine. As if he had just been waiting the whole night for her to say those words, he gripped her wrist and pulled her through the crowd. They made it in and out of coat check without a hassle but no amount of keeping her head down stopped the on flooding madness of flashing camera lights and shouts and jeers from some of the worst people the planet had to offer.

She gave them her most dazzling smile.

The Bulgarian, to his benefit, got her into his car relatively quickly but once they were in, to his detriment, he pulled her onto his lap and shoved her dress up to her waist.

“ _One_ second, big boy,” she muttered, trying to nudge the dress down again.

“You are teasing me all night,” and he sounded like he was whining and suddenly Pansy lost the will to, like, _go o_ n because why did she keep doing this to herself? It was never fun and all she ever got were hangovers and guilt and bad press and warts that one time --

“You said we have all night,” she cooed, dropped her hand to cup the side of his face. It broke out into another grin and that was kind of _cute_. It was always nice to see a bloke who still got genuinely excited to have sex, it came so easily these days.

“You are to love my place, I am thinking. It’s in Camden Town--”

Pansy tuned him out, adding periodic _hmms_ and _oohs_ , but for the most part drowning out the in depth description of his amazing flat with her own thoughts. He lived near Blaise and that’s all she needed to know in case she needed to make a quick escape to his flat -- and she was positive Daphne would be there because she was dedicated to the idea of picking up a skill and apparently _painting_ is the most useful one she could think of but Pansy has never been in the business of crushing people’s dreams so she let Daphne continue doing _whatever_ \--

“Uh -- Pansy? Ve’re here, babe.”

Pansy’s head snapped up and she felt a slight pinkness creeping up her cheeks because she had managed to zone out to the point of mentally and spiritually leaving the car and being somewhere else completely -- somewhere where her dress wasn't hiked all the way up her thighs and her hair lip gloss wasn’t smeared around her face and her hair wasn’t a mess and his driver wasn’t fucking _staring_ right at her.

“Right,” she sniffed and shimmied off of his lap. She held her head high as she walked past his driver, who had opened her door, and subserviently dipped his head at her drunken greatness. She felt no shame, of course, but she always wondered if service people all knew each other and gossiped about the amazing but crazy lives they were intimately familiar with.

She let the Bulgarian -- _what the fuck was his name_  -- lead her into his ground level flat and didn’t stop him when he immediately drew her close after shutting the door behind him. His large, meaty hands groped at her small waist before slipping down to her hips and pulling her tightly against him. Pansy replied in kind, knotting her fingers in his short, dark hair and moaning appropriately when he put his mouth on her earlobe as if that was a remotely attractive thing to do.

Pansy kicked off her heels as he began walking them backwards until the back of her thighs hit his kitchen table and his hands flew to her breasts and he gyrated his erection into her abdomen, his mouth almost completely covering hers and she felt like she was suffocating, like she was drowning, and she couldn't breath and maybe she was even dying and there were alarm bells ringing in her head like _what am I doing_ \--

“I hope you are ready for the Viktor Krum treatment tonight, sexy,” he whispered, his breath hitting her in the face like a fucking truck and she couldn’t stop herself from turning away.

“About that--” she breathlessly untangled herself from his arms and pushed against his hard chest, her palms slamming against his pectorals. “ _Viktor_ , I actually have to go. This was…” she trailed off and waved her hand dismissively. “ _Bye_.”

Before he could replied, she made a mad dash for her heels, hooking them over her index and middle fingers, and grabbed her purse and slipped out of the -- thankfully unlocked because that pause would have been awkward -- door then practically skipped down his hall.

“Wasn’t worth it,” she muttered to herself as she stuck her purse beneath her arm and walked onto the street. She didn’t bother putting her shoes back on and the vodka in her system made her forget how _disgusting_ that was as she walked down the street with an absentminded hand out to hail a cab while the other hand was scrolling through her phone.

She didn’t even notice the man following her.

Pansy took a left turn, her hand still out, but her eyes still glued to the tiny, white screen as she obsessively scrolled through the recent posts made about her. Her tits looked fantastic in her dress though the footballer she had left the club with didn’t look nearly as good with the blindingly white lights of the paparazzi camera.

She still didn’t notice the man following her.

Daphne would have a laugh after she recounted the look on Viktor's face when she basically ran out of his flat. Pansy smirked just thinking about. If fact, she might as well give the pair a warning that she was on her way over the minute a damn taxi drove by.

 _ **Uuuuuggghhhhh** , _she sent without preamble.

(03:23 am) _already reading abt it_

(03:24 am) _Viktor Krum -- bulgarias youngest, premier footballer_

(03:24 am) _nearly won them the EURO CUP_

(03:24 am) _abs to make your mother cry_

(03:25 am) _hypothetically_

(03:26 am) _etc etc whatev congrats!_

Pansy rolled her eyes then paused to look up away, hoping a cab would swoop down from the heavens and  _save her_ but it was useless and she still didn't notice the man following her.

(03:28 am) _ **he talked about himself in 3rd person and no premier bulgarian dick is worth that** _

(03:28 am) _ew_

(03:39 am) _btw on like some real shit i'm learning impressionism and rivera was a dick and khalo's life was v v v sad_

"What?" Pansy said out loud, squinting at the screen as she tried to make sense of Daphne's nonsense. She began to type out of reply when she cried out after stepping on a pebble or a piece of glass or maybe a heroin needle --

 _Then_ she noticed the man following her.

She looked up at the exact moment he shoved her to the right, her shoulder immediately crashing into a dumpster that covered most of the entrance to an alley.

“What -- _fuck_ ,” Pansy didn’t give herself a chance to be scared. In fact, everything suddenly very clear -- the attacker has a black mask on, she dropped her purse, her shoulder was probably bruised, the alley was at an awkward angle and it would be difficult for other pedestrians to see her, but they may hear her and maybe she could scream but also the attacker looked strong and he was tall and wide and he was looming over her and her voice cause in her throat and though even the smallest details came into vision, she was frozen and there was only one thing she could convince her body to do. As if she had been training for this moment for her entire life, she raised her leg and shoved her bare foot into her attacker’s groin, allowing her a small window of freedom to push him aside and sprint down the alley like the demons of Satan himself were on her heels.

Pansy screamed when she heard the crash of a metal trash can hit the ground but she didn’t bother to look over her shoulder to check if his was following, instead blindly typing in a number to her phone and hoping something went through.

“ _Harry, Harry, Harry_ ,” she chanted into the receiver like it was a fucking _mantra_ , the only thing keeping her upright as she dashed down the alley was one precarious hand skimming across brick wall -- _where the fuck is my purse_ \-- and she had abandoned the heels long ago. “Please, please, please, pick up your phone. Oh god, I’m going to die, _oh god_. Harry, Harry, please, _oh no_ \--”

Her pleas were cut off and her cellphone _flew_ from her hand when she abruptly tripped over a trash bag and as if it wasn’t bad enough, her dress split open and there she was: _in_  her own B-rated horror movie.

\-----

“-- y _es you do_ \-- let’s look at your crowning achievements, shall we? You were six when you pointed out your parents killer--”

“Too soon, by the by--”

“-- was a fucking _guess_ , you found the bomber by, what was it -- needing to take a piss real bad--”

“ _Lower your voice_ \--”

“Harry James Potter, you’ve got a good gut but you’re a reckless idiot and--”

Harry tuned out Hermione’s lecture and shared an eye roll with Dean, who was snickering between the two of them. The dive bar they were huddled together in was the setting of many of Hermione's infamous lectures. Ranging from how to treat servers to arguing about the Mediterranean refugee crisis, or even just Hermione's general disappointment with the state of affairs of Harry's life; there was no fun to be had when the group gathered outside of the headquarters for one exhausting night of _supposed_  'letting loose'. The New Scotland Yard had this funny way of insuring the lives of the people who worked within its walls -- from the constables to the prosecutors -- never experience the meaning of joy, happiness, and optimism all together. The lads, usually Dean, Seamus and Neville, merely let it happen.

“--riding on the coattails of your parents’ murder--”

“You know you throw out the dead parents thing _far_ too casually--”

“I calls it as I sees it,” Hermione shrugged at her ironic use of bad grammar and puckering her lips around her straw again, managing to only suck up a little more melted ice. “You want to take care of this case the lazy way, but it’s not the _right_ way--”

“My life isn’t a fucking after school special--”

“Harry, your phone,” Neville tapped him on the shoulder.

Finally becoming aware of the faint buzzing of the cellphone in his pocket, Harry checked its face and immediately rolled his eyes before ignoring it. “ _Parkinson_.”

“Is it important?” Hermione’s spine straightened immediately, looking at Harry’s phone askance as it vibrated to signify a message had been left and Harry visibly sneered because the concept of this case being even remotely important was a fucking _joke._

“It’s never fucking important. She drunk dials me sometimes -- I have no idea _why_ but it’s the worst possible way to wake up at 2 am. Listen to the message, it’ll be a laugh.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sneak peak:
> 
> _“No, no, no, no, no,” she repeated over and over again as she felt the ground for her shoes, her cell phone, her purse,_ her hair _. “No, no, no, no, no -- fuck!”_


	6. I'm Pansy Parkinson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Authors' Note:_ Wow, sorry about the cliff-hanger in the last chapter, guys. I'm posting this one sooner because I realize that was probably unfair. Anyway, this is meant to be the real turning point in this story. Like, the first five chapters were a lot of fun but now we get down to the real ~mystery~ of it all. Exciting!!

“ _Harry, Harry, Harry, please, please, please, pick up your phone. Oh god, I’m going to die, oh god. Harry, Harry, please, oh no--_ ”

Then nothing.

“ _Harry, Harry, Harry, please, please_ \--”

Harry heard to the message over and over again as he flew up from his chair and dashed out of the pub, the entirety of the table just a few steps behind him but he didn’t notice.

“-- _please, pick up your phone. Oh god_ \--”

He barked orders into his radio transceiver, yanked open the door of his car and began driving away with his other hand working its way to turning on his attachable siren. Next to him, Dean took over the radio and messages seemed to be flowing in. He contacted the headquarters and relayed information back to Harry as he drove wildly through the empty 3 am streets of London.

“--last seen in the North East, some club called Mundo Negro--”

“-- _I’m going to die, oh god_ \--”

“--ten squad cars, heading North East--”

Harry dodged through traffic, narrowly missing the handful of cars on the street that had stopped to investigate the commotion. Flying through three traffic lights, Harry veered to the left, skidding as he pressed the gas and urged his shitty mess of a car to move faster.

“--left with a Bulgarian bloke, Krum, sending a car there now--”

“-- _Harry, Harry, please_ \--”

“--five minutes out. Notify command, victim may be injured--”

Harry took a tight turn around a roundabout, his siren wailing in his ears just as loudly as Pansy’s message.

“-- _oh no_ \--”

Then nothing.

\-----------------

She crawled away, moving over the trash bags and trying to ignore the smell, but it was to no avail as her purser quickly reached her. He dedicated himself to his part at least -- black ski mask, black gloves, dark, dead eyes and all -- and just as he knelt down to and raised his hand to cover her agape mouth, like a flock of angels from above, a dozen or so police cars whizzed by, the lights and sounds causing him to double back, distracted and giving Pansy the opportunity to let out one of the _unholiest_ wails ever to be heard on the London city streets. She raised her hand and dragged her well-manicured nails down the front of his face, digging as deeply as she could over his eye and down the side of his nose but her success was short-lived as he reached down, yanked her to a kneeling position by her hair and, in what seemed like slow motion, cut a chunk off and dropped her to the ground.

As the last car whizzed by, he turned and fled down the alley, leaving her stunned and motionless between a small mountain of trash bags and what she was sure was a decently sized colony of rats living in a puddle of vomit to her right.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she repeated over and over again as she felt the ground for her shoes, her cell phone, her purse, her _hair_. “ _No, no, no, no, no_ \-- fuck!”

Pansy pushed herself off the ground and began to run. She ran until she hit the empty sidewalk, then took a sharp right, half hoping the police cars would be delayed at a red light. Regardless, she keep _running_ \-- past the Bulgarian's flat and unknowingly towards the direction of the night club, and after what seemed an eternity, she finally spotted a police car. She dashed into the street before it could start moving and leapt in front of it, slamming her hands on the hood.

It wasn't until then that she realized she had been screaming the entire way. Her lungs were on fire and her lips were dry, her chest was heaving and burning and caving into itself -- she thought her knees would give out the moment she leaned against the hood of the car, but through some unknown force of god she remained standing and slamming her fists down again, her scream dying into a pathetic whimper.

"I'm Pansy Parkinson.”

\---------------------

“There was no evidence of sexual assault when I tended to her bruises but she was clearly in shock. My colleague -- the male nurse you just spoke to, Terry -- tried to get her into a bath, she was filthy, but panicked and lunged at him, would only let female nurses care for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she suffers some post traumatic stress for at least a few weeks.”

Harry nodded and jotted down notes into his worn out notebook as nurse Patil spoke. He had worked with her before with sexual assault victims who entered the Royal London and they had a handful of mutual friends. She was a competent, mild-mannered woman, about his age, and he appreciated her no frills way of getting to work, particularly since he also coincidentally worked with her sister occasionally, a psychologist who worked on character profiles for the New Scotland Yard. If they weren’t identical, he would never guess they were twins.

“--female detective interviewed with her, a Bones, I think? I’d never seen her before.”

“Susan Bones,” Harry nodded, flipping his notebook shut and tucking it into his pocket. “She’s good. I needed to finish sweeping the crime scene. Makes sense she was filthy, judging the alley where we found her cell phone and purse, she was attacked near a rat’s nest.”

Padma made a face but regained her professionalism a second later. “Poor girl. She’s really out of sorts. I know you can’t talk about the case but…”

Padma trailed off and Harry realized even a nurse as disciplined as her could be swept away by the glitz and glamour of caring for a celebrity. Harry sighed.

“I can’t talk about the case,” Harry repeated. “But the blood and skin you noticed under her nails will help us shut it, that’s for sure. We already sent it to the forensic specialist.”

He saw Padma clearly trying not to look disappointed but she moved on either way. “I saw Neville a few weeks ago at a Nero in Soho. Send him my love, will you? I promised him I’d give him a call.”

The two chatted for a few more minutes but Harry’s mind was elsewhere. If Parkinson had only followed his instructions, she wouldn’t be laying in a hospital bed at the moment, but he also silently thanked her. The DNA she scratched off was his first real clue, the surveillance footage and restaurant servers ultimately being a dead end. Why her stalker had given her a rushed haircut and nothing more, Harry hadn’t the slightest, but judging by the bruise on Pansy’s leg and the amount of skin that was under her nails, she managed her a bit of retribution at the time. Harry would never admit it out loud, especially not to _her_ , but he didn’t think the rich girl had it in her.

\--------------------

“There were only a handful of people on the street at that time and thankfully you weren’t recognized by most of them. It all happened very fast and we were able to spin it as a mugging gone wrong with the press -- it’ll dissuade copycats but you’ll may be able to play the victim card for sympathy points on Instagram--”

“Why is she still here?” Pansy said in a quiet voice and looked directly ahead at Daphne, who shared a look of sympathy, and purposefully ignored whatever fixer her father had hired this time. Only three hours after she arrived to the hospital, and immediately after being questioned by the police, the young, career-focused and ambitious blonde strolled into her room like she had a fucking purpose. She only paused for a moment before scrolling through her Blackberry like it was 2007 and continuing where ever she had left off.

“I can have a favorable interview with Rita Skeeter from _People_ by tomorrow. She’s always been kind to us and it would be nice to have her owe us a favor --”

“ _Us_ ,” Pansy spat.

“-- father would like to send you to Morocco until this blows over--”

“No.”

“--or perhaps New York City, he mentioned you enjoyed it the last time--”

“ _No_.”

“--arrange for anywhere, really, though we should keep you out of the news--”

“I said fucking no,” Pansy seethed, stopping the fixer in her tracks. “I’m not _going_ anywhere. I’m not going to let some sociopath run me from my _home_.”

“Pansy, your father--”

“Just leave,” she waved her hand dismissively and turned to her side on her hospital bed. She began running her hand over the shortened area of her hair and contained the tears until she was sure the fixer was gone because she’d be damned if she received any pity. “Daphne.”

“I’m here, Pans.”

“I need a salon appointment,” Pansy’s voice cracked and the tears finally fell over. As soon as the first one fell the entire wall came down and soon enough Pansy’s shoulders were convulsing and she was crying uncontrollably, _hysterically_ , Daphne’s arms circled around her shoulders but she hardly noticed because her chest wasn’t filling with enough air and she was hyperventilating as she spoke, feeling as if she was drowning on her very words.

“I-- I-- I’m always fre-freer in the afternoons and, and, and I h-hate that A-a-asian b-b-bloke so not h-h-him,” she wailed, though not even she could put sense to her words. A therapist would say Pansy had a hard time confronting her issues, but she refused to speak to any of those crackpots after her father’s fourth divorce from another identical looking Korean woman.

“Pans, you don’t need a salon appointment, love,” Daphne threaded her fingers through her hair while the other hand created small circles on her back. Pansy turned her head and cried into the crook of her neck, ignoring the disgusting mixture of tears and snot that stained her jumper. “You need me. I’ll take care of this.”

Pansy sniffed as Daphne pulled away and disappeared into the bathroom. Her shoulders still shook occasionally but she had largely calmed down by the time Daphne returned brandishing a hospital-issued comb and a scarily large pair of scissors.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Pansy snapped, any evidence that she had been crying immediately gone from her voice, her hands flying to her hair.

“What am I going to do -- make it look _worse_? Just turn around and put that sheet over yourself in case I make a mess.”

A half an hour later, Pansy was standing in front of the hospital bathroom mirror, staring at an unfamiliar tear-stricken face. Daphne managed to cut her hair equal at all sides, which meant it just graced her ears.

“I don’t think I did a bad job on the layers,” the blonde said in a low voice, threading her fingers through the back of Pansy’s hair, though the motion abruptly finished at the center of Pansy’s neck.

“No, no you didn’t.”

“And it'll grow back, too,” she said hopefully.

“Yes, yes it will.”

“Pansy--”

“No, Daphne, it’s alright.” Pansy turned around and wrapped her arms around Daphne’s neck, standing on the balls of her feet to press her cheek against hers. “I like it.”

Daphne’s arms circled Pansy’s waist and brought her closer, the two girls standing in a tight embrace, unlike any other hug to ever occur in the relatively short duration of their friendship. However, there was no other person in the world Pansy needed in that very moment because Daphne, for some unspoken reason, _understood_ without Pansy having to say a single word. Draco and Blaise, her longest friendships, were amazing in their own right but Pansy didn’t feel like talking, she didn’t want to explain herself or her emotions or thoughts, she just needed a haircut and a hug from a beautiful, tall blonde friend.

“I think you look a bit like Anne Hathaway.”

Pansy hesitated and, with her voice muffled against the crook of her elbow, said, “Creepy skinny Anne or sexy skinny Anne?”

Pulled away from her, Daphne placed her hands on Pansy’s shoulders and examined her face closely before answering with a grin. “Sexy Anne, _defo_.”

Pansy grinned in return because even if it wasn’t true Daphne knew enough to give her what she needed to hear, although both girls knew very well that she was far too short to be anything resembling Anne Hathaway, and her lips were unfortunately thinner, but it was the type of compliment one friend told another after she was viciously attacked in an alley.

Before she could respond, the short Indian nurse who had introduced herself as Padma poked her head into the bathroom with a short knock.

“Ms. Parkinson? I Potter is here to see you. He says he’s to take you home.”

The grin left her face just as quickly as it had arrived, replaced immediately with a scowl. “He can come in.”

The two girls laced fingers and returned to Pansy’s bed, sitting on the edge just as Potter entered the room. The disheveled detective looked even more when he entered the room and Pansy thought he looked as tired as she felt and suddenly she wished she had done a better job at washing and drying her face free of the tears because she knew that would be the first thing he would notice.

“Miss Parkinson,” Potter said in a rushed voice, glancing at Daphne quickly before looking back at her. “How are you feeling?”

“How do you think?”

Harry stopped abruptly in his steps and allowed his shoulders to slump forth. Pansy knew it was her fault for sneaking away from those buffoons known as detectives, but that didn’t stop her from sending Potter the brute of her ire.

“Right,” he sunk his hands into his pockets and exhaled slowly. “We’re working on getting a DNA hit from the skin and blood from under your nails--”

“Gross,” Daphne made a face.

“--Longbottom, a particulate matter specialist, says you probably carved his face in fairly well--”

“Good,” this time Daphne had a smile.

“--working with a psychologist to get a character profile, though his obsession is clearly passed stalking--”

“ _Obviou_ \--” Potter didn’t let Daphne finish her eye roll.

“Miss Greengrass,” he said sharply. “Your commentary is completely unnecessary." Daphne crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“Judging by last night, so is your fucking job.”

This time both Harry and Pansy were taken aback but Pansy spoke first. “Potter, I know you’re here to take me home but I’m going to stay with Daphne until this is over. We’re just going to pick up some things from my flat first.”

“And I’ll be going with you,” Harry responded flatly in a tone that reminded Pansy of her father saying _you’re going to boarding school._  "We have eyes on your building, but I can’t have you going there alone in case. I’ll drive you to Greengrass’ when you’re finished.”

Pansy didn’t argue and Potter seemed almost surprised, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t sure if she could care about anything anymore.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sneak peak for what's to come:  
>  _“Fuck. You.”_  
>  _Pansy slapped her hand against the open door button and glared at Potter. “Fuck you for thinking you’re better because you do, you do think that. So just -- just, **fuck you**.”_


	7. Her Home

“Are you going to take my case seriously now?”

“I’ve always taken your case seriously.”

“Right,” Pansy answered bitterly just as the door of the taxi opened. She crossed her arms over her chest and made a beeline through the handful of paparazzi to her building door, Harry closely following her. The entire ride from the hospital to her flat in Chelsea had occurred in strict silence, neither one of them willing to be the person who spoke first but Pansy’s bitterness had gotten the best of her and seeing the paparazzi gave her a new found energy through sheer _anger_. She knew Potter thought himself better than a mere case of celebrity stalking, unable to think that there was any danger in her situation because surely she had _all_ the resources in the world to snap her fingers and rectify any wrongdoings in her path and having _him_ on her case was a waste of good tax payer money. Even now, she could imagine him scoffing at her attack, writing it off as a simple back alley chasing and an inconvenient haircut.

Pansy jabbed the up button of the elevator perhaps a little too hard and she could _feel_  him roll her eyes behind her.

“Miss Parkins-”

“ _Stop calling me that_. It takes so much more effort than just saying my fucking name. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be my detective--”

“I’m not _your_ anything, I’m--”

“And after a near death experience or two, you _should_ be able to--”

“--still a simple case, if only you’d follow fucking direct--”

“--your job instead of dictating my life--”

“-- _prancing about_ , jeopardizing your life and _my_ case--”

“--couldn’t care less about my fucking--”

“--detective not a babysitter--”

“What’s your fucking problem?” Pansy shouted as soon as the elevator doors closed behind them and angrily slamming on the seven button. “My life is shit and you’re complaining about -- what? Doing what you’re fucking _paid_ to do?”

“Your life is hardly _shit_ ,” Harry spat and he lifted his arms and gestured around the tiny elevator as if to accent his point. He continued to wave his arms dramatically as he spoke, his face reddening with each word. “This is an _inconvenience_ , not a fucking travesty. I can’t just drop everything and rearrange my life because you’re uncomfortable with the byproducts of being famous.”

“You act as if you’re walking around like Mr. Fucking Average -- no _shut up_ \-- you’ve been famous a lot longer than I have but you think your fame is more just or fucking _deserved_ , like you didn’t -- right, the dead parents thing, okay _yeah_ , besides the point -- like you didn’t chance into it by fucking _luck_ \--”

“I’m not famous--”

“You’ve got a Wikipedia page, Potter--”

“--worked hard for _everything_ I have, you have no idea the _shit_ \--”

“--boarding school paid for by the government--”

“--worst foster parents in all of England--”

“--all but _waltzed_ into the academy--”

“--people think they know, but they haven’t the fucking slightest--”

“--Birmingham's football _hero_ , for fuck’s sake--”

“--and _you_ ,” the elevator doors opened and closed but Harry’s booming voice forced Pansy still, “have everything. _Everything_. But you still complain endlessly. You have no idea what real life is even like.”

“Fuck. You.”

Pansy slapped her hand against the open door button and glared at Potter. “Fuck you for thinking you’re better because you do -- you _do_ think that. So just -- just, _fuck you_.”

Storming out of the elevator, Pansy wanted to applaud herself on the made-for-film exit, but the anger fermenting inside her kept her mind turning on everything Potter had said, things she was sure plenty of people _thought_ but never dared to say to her face for fear of a scathing insult in return. However Potter obviously wasn’t phased by her reputation and perhaps that merely added to her annoyance. She wanted to kick something or to scream or to punch the hideous bust of Marie Antoinette in her foyer, but she focused her gaze on the end of the corridor and her fury at the dark-haired detective just two steps behind her who can just _fuck himself_ because she _knew --_ from the second she laid her eyes on him outside of her building -- that he would be this way. Maybe Theo was right and she hasn’t done anything to exactly help his case, but she wasn’t the ever-so fucking professional DI whose sole job is to--

“Oh my god,” Pansy’s breath left her in a rushed gasp as she stopped short at the end of her corridor and stared down at the motionless, bruised body of her housekeeper.

She was dead.

She was **_dead_**.

“Parkins -- _shite_.”

In an instant, Potter was kneeling beside the body, his department-issued cellphone in hand and dialing Moody while his eyes scanned the body. Pansy remained rooted in stop, her arms and legs frozen mid-stride because what else would someone do when they stumbled upon a dead body in their flat. If her life were a film -- which it was increasingly becoming, in fact -- she should have started screaming.

“Pansy, when was the last time you--”

Pansy then let out the most ungodly wail to ever be heard in the entirely of the United Kingdom, as if her brain switched on ten seconds later than normal.

Potter was on his feet in seconds, his arms on her shoulders and his face closer to hers than it had ever been, while she continued screaming though his body blocked her view. She couldn’t stop even if she wanted to. It wasn’t so much that it was unexpected, because it fucking _was_ , but while she hated Potter for taking her case less seriously than he should have, Pansy had also been taking the situation in stride. She didn’t think it would lead to any actual harm, last night aside, and she didn’t think it would lead to _murder_. She _definitely_ didn’t think it would lead to the murder of Patience Ozumba, her kind, elderly Zambian housekeeper. Only four months into the job, she doubted Patience expected it either.

Pansy blinked her eyes rapidly, her brain deciding to return to the situation at hand just as Potter began shaking her shoulder gently.

“Pansy, Pansy, _Pansy, Pansy_ \-- you’re in shock. Pansy, you’re in shock. I need you to go downstairs -- listen carefully, Pansy, alright? Just,” he spoke to her softly but hurriedly,  “turn around, walk down the corridor, call the elevator and _go downstairs_ , alright? I’ve already called the police. Go downstairs and wait for them -- no more than ten minutes -- listen, _listen_ , Pansy,” he shook her again, a bit more frantic. “Go downstairs and wait for them, they’ll take care of you. No, I need to stay here.”

Pansy made an inarticulate noise, aborting the movement to grasp Potter’s sleeve as he guided her towards the elevator. “Pansy, just go downstairs. I’ll take care of everything. Everything will be okay. Everything’s going to be all right. I’m going to take care of it, I’m going to take care of you. Just go dow--”

Turning on her heel in the middle of Harry’s sentence and absentmindedly began stumbling down the hallway, Pansy nodded numbly to herself. Everything was going to be okay, everything was going to be alright, but Patience was dead and Pansy had completely forgotten that it was her day to come in and clean -- every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, how could she have forgotten -- but everything was going to be okay, everything was going to be alright, because if Potter was worth even half of what he thought he was -- her housekeeper wouldn’t be dead -- he’ll find the prick and she be -- she won’t end up --

Pansy pressed the down button for the elevator.

\------------

The next five hours were a blur.

It could have been more than five hours, but they were a _blur_.

Pansy was greeted by officers, questioned several times, gave answers that she wouldn’t be able to attest to, shuffled to the nearest police station, questioned again though she didn’t recall those answers either then taken again to a different station, questioned again, gave answers she couldn’t remember, then finally moved to a gray, stuffy meeting room elsewhere in the station.

“I want to see Harry Potter,” she had finally said in a quiet voice and the repeated the request two more times before the tired looking detective appeared in front of her.

“I rushed the DNA sampled from under your nails,” he said without preamble, handing her a styrofoam cup of coffee. “I’m going to assume the name Mundungus Fletcher doesn’t ring any bells?”

Pansy shook her head, looking straight ahead as Harry grunted and took a seat next to her. It’s hard to believe just a few days ago she was so happy. _Happy_. No, god, she was _miserable_ \-- but compared now she realized her life had been truly amazing and really she only walked around being bored and miserable because that seemed more genuine than being _happy_. Is this character growth? Her frown deepened as she drowned herself in her thoughts. Fuck, she was becoming a god damn Brontë sister.

“--petty criminal. Pickpocketing, breaking and entering, check fraud, too idiotic to break into your building -- though they didn’t find anything at the crime scene.”

The crime scene.

Her flat.

Her home.

She had been so  _happy._

“And?” her voice sounded quiet and raspy and weak and she hated it, but she sipped her coffee anyway. Though that was a generous word for it -- it was more like coffee-tinted lukewarm water and even as detached as she felt she couldn't help being a snob, even it was just mentally. Pansy will always have standards.

“I put out some men in his usual spots. Moody, my boss, put him away five years ago but he got out recently on good behavior, told me this -- your situation -- doesn’t fit his MO--”

“My situation,” she said in an empty voice.

“Pansy--”

“My situation,” she whipped her head to the side to face him, Harry turning in the same moment. “My situation just became something you have to talk to your boss about.”

“I couldn’t have--”

“My _situation_ ,” she interrupted, her gaze hardening. “ _Just_ became life-threatening, didn’t it?”

Harry remained silent for a moment, his eyes boring into hers, but she didn’t soften her glare. “Yes.”

Pansy nodded slowly then turned to face the grey wall in front of them again. Her situation was a murder case now. She could only assume Potter felt more comfortable with this though she wasn't entire sure how she felt still. Someone was dead, someone innocent, but not a person she particularly had feelings for and honestly, it felt more like her chest was empty -- like she didn't have a beating heart at all.

“I’m going to question Fletcher the second they bring him in.”

“Do you think he has anything?”

“Not really. But it won’t hurt. Parkinson, I meant it when I said,” Harry paused, his mouth visibly working over the words. “I meant it when I said I’m going to take care of everything. I’m going to make sure you’re safe, I mean it -- I fucking mean it, Pansy.”

She pressed her lips together, holding the styrofoam cup in a threateningly stop grip, and nodded. Though she hated Potter for the way he had threatened her, for his holier-than-thou attitude and the self-righteous way he looked down at her, as if her very existence negated everything she stood for, she believed he would solve her case. In fact, at this point, she doubted anyone else could. But who else did she have? 

“Take me to Daphne’s now.”

Potter looked like he was going to argue but he didn’t and Pansy assumed maybe there was a slight chance he finally cared, and, with the image of Patience’s dead body burned into the front of her skull, Pansy was glad he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sneak peak:
> 
> _Apparently Madam Luna Lovegood, who couldn't be any older than Pansy, was a petite Turkish girl with a bad platinum blonde dye job, wide blue eyes and a curious smile. She sat at a small circular table with various cards facing downward in front of her. "I've been expecting you."_
> 
> _"Yeah, because we called ahead," she muttered, stepping in front of Daphne and taking the first seat directly in front of the blonde. Her long, oily hair as clumped together in beads and barrettes, some of which looked like real petals and leaves, and a rabbit's foot was dangling from one ear._
> 
> _"This is fucking fantastic," Draco exhaled, sinking down next to Pansy, his eyes wide and unbelieving at the young woman in front of them._


	8. Luna Lovegood and her Backroom

“Dead for approximately fifteen to twenty-five hours. Your girl was seen at the dance club at midnight two nights ago and I’d say her housekeeper was dead just a few hours before that. Asphyxiation, for sure. Your perp put his knee right here,” Lavender pointed a well-manicured nail just between the breasts and above a fresh, unhealing scar that went down the cold housekeeper’s chest to her navel, “and put all his weight pressing down on her neck, resulting in a hyoid fracture, choked her for _maybe_ three minutes before she died. Sternum was also broken, but it wasn’t what killed her. Fuckin’ _hurt_ though, I bet.”

“Right,” Harry grimaced and tore his eyes away from the body to look at the bubble-gum popping brunette again. He had seen many dead bodies throughout his life -- starting with his parents and then throughout his career -- but he never got accustomed to the dead, unblinking eyes of a corpse the way Lavender seemed to have. Bones once told him that she spoke to the corpses she worked with, giving them personalities and preferences as though their very spirit was still in the room. She unnerved Harry. “Any DNA?”

Lavender shook her head wildly, her high pony tail shaking back and forth. “Professional job, for sure. And your forensics man, tall fellow, kind of awkward--”

“Neville,” Harry nodded.

“--yeah, him. Said there was nothing at the crime scene either. I did try for a recreation of the hands that were wrapped around the corpse’s neck. A man, for sure.”

Lavender’s heels clicked against the linoleum floor and brought back a three sketches of a pair of hands from different angles. “Look here, you see he was wearing gloves but the indents on her neck clearly show he was wearing rings, at least one on each finger, not sure about the thumbs. They’re real thick too, I’d say your man is at least 90 kilos, maybe 6 feet tall. Didn’t take much for him to take grandma down, for sure.”

Glancing quickly from the drawings to the indents on the corpse’s neck, Harry squinted carefully at the details in front of him. “Do you see that?” he said in a low voice, leaning closely to her neck, his eyes straining through his glasses to make out the imprecise details. “What does that look like to you?”

Lavender leaned forward as well, her bubble gum popping just next to his ear but Harry tried not to notice. “Seems a bit like, miniature teeth? Or… a _face_?”

Harry straightened once more and folded the drawings to fit into his breast pocket, along with his pen and his notebook. Though he didn’t know for sure, _f_ _or sure_ , he was confident it was a skull, one of those enormous rings typically worn by blokes clad in black leather jackets and walked around with clear masculinity problems.

“Say, Potter,” Lavender placed her hands on her hips and gave Harry a curious look. “Why is it you’re the only DI waltzing in here without a partner?”

“I’ve got a whole team, Brown,” Harry replied honestly but her eye roll was enough for him to sigh and continue. “Some things you just have to do alone, alright?”

\-----------

“Potter. You got a minute?”

Harry looked up from his ancient computer screen and squinted at Dean. His eyes seemed to have adjusted to the painfully white screen as he plowed through his fifth hour of paper work. “I’ve got  _maybe_ thirty seconds.”

Dean held out a thin folder between his thumb and index finger. “We got your guy. Fletcher? He was picked in a Romanian food market trying to sell fifteen bags of rice--”

He was out of his seat before Dean finished his sentence, snatching the folder from his hand then making his way through the crowd and into the corridor heading to the interrogation room. Amelia, who already knew where his growing obsession was focused these days, shouted _third door to your right_  as he passed and Harry was standing face-to-face with the twitchy-looking theft in seconds.

“Mundungus Fletcher,” he said slowly as he circled to table to arrive to his seat. His eyes carefully examined the thin, pathetic looking man, taking in every single detail. According to Pansy’s tale of the assault, he perfectly fit the description -- thin and long with hunched shoulders, his eyes were a dull blue and he even had a fresh scratch just under the right one, which Harry was confident would fit Pansy’s nail size. He found him.

“Listen, that rice, I bought it -- I swear -- some guy, over in Tower Hamlets, he had a good price -- shudda known better, yeah yeah, I know, but I figured I’d just--”

“I don’t care about the fucking rice,” Harry plopped down into the chair directly in front of Fletcher and quickly flipped through the manila folder he had grabbed. “ -- no, you’re not the guy I’m looking for. But you did attack a girl a few nights ago.” Harry watched at the color drained from Fletcher’s face.

“My cellmate, Russian bloke or something, over in the Scrubs,  he told me about some quick job--”

“What quick job--”

“Some guy, real fucking weird, I swear, not my type, but the fucking money he was giving up, I mean--”

“Fletcher, you’re looking at ten to fifteen for assault,” Harry interrupted him abruptly. “Get to the fucking point.”

Mundungus began twitching more drastically, his leg bouncing up and down to the point of connecting with the table above it, and his finger tapping wildly on the table. “It was an easy 250, bruv. 250 pounds for followin’ this bird ‘round for a bit and waitin’ until she got alone. I meant no harm -- I swear, I fuckin’ swear it -- I just needed a bit of hair. But then she started kickin’ and screamin’ -- got me right in the fuckin’ sack -- she even scratched my fuckin’ face, all that,” Mundungus spoke faster and with more urgency that before, his nervous finger stopping to slam against the table. “Never even met the bloke. He left some paper for me in the bathroom of this pub in Piccadilly -- Garfunkels, or somethin’ -- and left the money in the same place two days later. I don’t even know the girl -- I heard she’s famous or something like that, but I don’t even fuckin’ know her. I didn’t try to get no money or anything -- just the hair, that was deal. I swear it. I fucking _swear_ it, mate.”

Harry clenched his jaw and nodded after Mundungus finished speaking. Though he expected him to have a rather insignificant part in the entire case, he had hoped for more information for him. From what he was hearing, it was a mere pump-and-dump job passed along to an easy target.

“And this cellmate in the Scrubs you mentioned. What’s he got to do with all this?”

“Ant Dolohov. He’s some kind of Russian or Ukrainian or Bulgarian -- I don’t fuckin’ know, bruv -- but he told me his boss needed some shit done. Since I was getting out soon, he said to get to the pub and pick up the details and it would be an in-and-out deal with a pretty penny at the end. He was a weird fuckin’ bloke though. I thought maybe because he was foreign and all that, but all he talked about was the second coming and all that shite. He was talkin’ about his boss like he was fuckin’ god or something. I mean, I don’t really question easy money, but he was a weird fuckin’ bloke, he really was. Gave me the creeps and all that.”

Harry stood suddenly from his seat, tucking Mundungus’ file under his arm. “Right. I’ll see to it that you get a decent deal, Fletcher. Romani, aren’t you?”

Mundungus nodded vigorously. “You people are always kickin’ at us, pushin’ us out and all that -- the rich, bruv, I swear, I’m just tryin’ to make a livin’ in this place--”

Rolling his eyes, Harry dropped his hands on Mundungus’ shoulder and gave it a light tap. “You’ll get a decent deal, mate. Hold tight right here. And stay the fuck out of trouble, yeah?”

\--------------

“--and he’s been entirely fucking worthless but like, who else have I got, you know? I have to just fucking sit here and _believe_ that he’ll conjure up some damn solution. I’ve never felt so useless in my entire life. Like, just handing over my entire life to this uncaring fuck but like, what other choice do I have, you know?”

Daphne paused from her urgent task of brushing her fingers through Pansy’s hair before figuring Pansy’s question was rhetorical and resuming the lethargic action. Even with her short hair, Pansy still felt relaxed with her head on Daphne’s thighs and her friend’s thin, slender fingers making their way through her hair, in a way that reminded Pansy of a mother and her child though typically it was the other way around, and it Pansy who spent all her time babying Daphne. Still, she couldn’t be strong all the time.

“Daphne,” she sighed and sat up from her comfortable position. “What if I die?”

Daphne crossed her arms over her abdomen in a self-conscious hugging position. She immediately looked so much younger that Pansy regretted bringing it up-- she shouldn’t be burdening the nineteen year old with the possibility of her death. It was her problem and Daphne certainly hadn’t signed up for it when she arrived to London and allowed Pansy to take her under her wing and show her the ways of effortless social celebrity and with the type of social gold Daphne was accruing these days, she could have walked away from all of this a long time ago. But she hadn’t and Pansy wondered why. And Pansy wondered what she would have done if this happened to a friend when she was nineteen. Pansy wondered what she would do if her and Daphne’s positions were switched and if she would be as moral.

“You’re not going to die.”

“Daph--”

“You’re not going to die,” Daphne repeated, tucking her legs underneath her body and sitting on the backs of her calves. “You won’t. I know.”

“You can’t possibly know--”

“Yes I can!”

“--crazy chasing after me, not even the police--”

“Pansy!” Daphne shouted, her voice sharpening and her eyebrows knitting together in a way Pansy had never seen before and maybe it was because the pair had never had to endure an incredibly serious conversation in the duration of their short friendship. “I _know_ , okay? I… I have someone.”

“You _what_?”

“I have… I have someone. A palm reader.”

Pansy gaped at the blonde and just when she thought their friendship was going through a serious, significant evolution, Pansy was forced to retreat back to her eye roll of disbelief.

“Fucking hell, Daph. I’m being serious--”

“So am I!” she insisted, her eyes widening earnestly as she leaned forward. “Madam Lovegood--”

“Madam _Lovegood_? Does she moonlight as a fucking _mistress_ \--”

“She said you’ll find all your answers, Pans, I swear by it. Everything she’s ever said is gold and she said you’ll have a nice, long life and -- and I quote -- _find all your answers_.”

“A ten pound palm reader isn’t all-knowing, Daphne. How do you expect some fucking fortune teller to know more than the damn police about a deranged killer?”

Pansy repeated over and over that she’ll never see a fucking palm reader because it was a waste of time and effort and money and she didn’t want to leave her flat anyway and she definitely didn’t want Draco to be there for the whole fiasco and she’d rather die than step foot into the Turkish neighborhood in Islington because it was filled with pickpockets and scam artists and she’ll never sink so low as to seek guidance from someone essentially playing fucking _pretend_. She texted the only person she figured would  _understand_ because he found the same stupid shit just as ridiculous as she did.

(11:13 am) _D_   _you will_ nvr  _believe what daph wants 2 put me thru_

(11:13 am)  _as if my life has been plagued w ENOUGH turmoil_

(11:17 am) _DDDDDDDD_

(11:20 am) **class**

(11:20 am) **chat l8r**

(11:21 am) _SHE WANTS ME TO GO TO A PALM READER_

(11:21 am) **??????**

(11:22 am) _LEGIT A_ _FORTUNE TELLER_

(11:22 am) _in turk town n everything_

(11:22 am)  _she's trying 2 bribe me w Rakı pls send help_

(11:25 am) **fuck taxation law**

(11:25 am) **b there in 60**

(11:26 am) **WAIT 4 ME**

(11:27 am) **also bring me Rakı**

(11:29 am) _fucking fantastic_

\-------------- 

Two hours later, Daphne, Draco, Pansy stepped out of a black cab and onto the streets of London’s premiere Turkish neighborhood.

“You two promised me Rakı,” Draco said in a slow drawl, flicking a dying cigarette to the ground then stomping on it with the tip of his toes as they stopped in front of a storefront reading _Lovegood’s Psychic Emporium._

“ _Afterwards_!” Daphne said in an excited voice as she laced her fingers through Pansy’s and sent them both a grin.

Draco turned with his own smirk and draped his heavy arm over Pansy shoulder. She instinctively leaned into the taller man’s embrace. The pair didn’t speak the entire way to the Turkish neighborhood in Islington but neither of them even had a chance through Daphne’s excited chatter and Pansy doubted there was anything for him to say anyway. Draco wasn’t the overtly comforting type. At the tender age of eleven, he had tucked a handkerchief filled with maggots into her father’s tuxedo jacket pocket at his engagement party to her first stepmom; and a few years later he forced a fourteen year old Pansy to finish an entire bottle of rice wine at her mother’s funeral, to be culturally appropriate he had claimed, then _laughed_ at the hospital while she was having her stomach pumped; and he had left immediately after she gave him her virginity only to reappear after three weeks of fucking _silence_ , cigarette dangling from his seventeen year old lips, with his father's newly restored 1962 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso and plans to road trip across continental Europe for the summer.

Draco wasn’t the comforting type but he was…

Something.

He was _something_.

“Let’s get this over with,” Pansy said but before any of them moved, a white-haired, crazed looking man threw the door open in front of them.

“Welcome!” he shouted, arms opened wide. “To London’s premier shop for all things supernatural, metaphysical, mystical!”

The trio stared blankly at the eccentrically dressed man who, after ten _painfully_ long seconds of silence, began to drop his hands. “And you’re probably here to see my daughter, Luna. Right,” he cleared his throat and stepped ahead. “Straight to the back, then.”

Pansy tried to not look around as the three walked through the small, dark, creepy shop, linked by their hands with Daphne leading the pack in the front and Draco sniggering behind her.

“Miss Pansy,” they heard a light voice from beyond a velvet red curtain at the end of the corridor. Daphne looked over her shoulder with a grin and pulled the curtain aside, revealing… not what she had been expecting. Apparently Madam Luna Lovegood, who couldn’t be any older than Pansy, was a petite, Turkish girl with a bad platinum blonde dye job and wide, blue eyes and a curious smile. She sat at a small circular table with various cards facing downward in front of her. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Yeah, because we called ahead,” she muttered, stepping in front of Daphne and taking the first seat directly in front of the blonde. Her long, oily hair as clumped together in beads and barrettes, some of which looked like real petals and leaves, and a rabbit’s foot was dangling from one ear.

“This is fucking brilliant,” Draco exhaled, sinking down next to Pansy, his eyes wide and unbelieving at the woman in front of them.

“Daphne, I’m so happy to see you well. _Namaste_.”

“ _Namaste_ ,” Daphne bowed with her hands pressed together, earning a barkish laugh from Draco and a gagging sound from Pansy. Daphne glared at them before taking the final seat.

"Fucking  _brilliant,_ " he repeated.

“Before we begin, Pansy,” Lovegood reached across the table and enveloped Pansy’s hands in hers before she had the chance to pull away. “I know what it’s like to lose a maternal figure at a vital age in life. We begin from equal footing.”

Pansy hissing but made no attempt to pull her hands away, instead choosing to glare at her. “Just get on with the...  _whatever_ it is you do.”

Lovegood hummed and turned Pansy’s hand around in hers. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, her mouth slightly agape, her entire body swaying back and forth, and her eyes clearly moving back and forth under their lids. “Yes, yes, of course. Pansy, your future… your aura… it’s so strong. I’m definitely feeling--” Lovegood stopped abruptly, her shoulders shaking visibly. “Goodness, looks like I’ll need, ah, _forty pounds_ first, please.”

Draco choked on his laughter before digging into his wallet and throwing the money between them on the table. “This is _so_ better than taxation law.”

Lovegood quickly nabbed the money off the table and tucked it into her bra before snatching up Pansy’s hands again.

“Yes, the signal is significantly stronger now--”

Draco snickered.

“--feel the tension in you, Pansy. Close your eyes. You’re experiencing a immense about of stress at the moment--”

Draco chortled.

“--unlike any other moment in your life, the veil between life and death seems so thin--”

Draco _snorted_.

“I’m feeling a lot of _negative energy_ ,” Luna raised her voice over Draco’s latest round of chuckles. “And it is disturbing my reading.”

“Draco,” Daphne hissed, who had her hands folded on her lap and her eyes closed as if in prayer.

“Pansy--”

“Fucking _get on with it_.”

“There is someone who is trying to consume your essence, Pansy. There is an evil force surrounding your aura, clouding its energy. You are… doubtful. This evil is not merely aiming to kill your human form, but also your spirit and your essence until you are no longer… _you_.”

Pansy expected a vocal response from Draco but when none came, she swallowed dry and began nibbling on her lip.

“What does that mean?”

“It means… you are experiencing a tragedy, Pansy. But you mustn’t let your life become tragic. You will experience the disgusting reaches of evil in this world, but you cannot let it kill you. Who you are.”

Silence fell over the room, both Daphne and Draco’s breathes stilled beside her and Pansy’s eyes snapped open, meeting Lovegood’s shockingly crystal blue ones, and she felt a shiver run down her spine and she wasn’t why because magic wasn’t fucking _real_ and the blonde girl in front of her could have said the exact same words to the twenty people who had gone before Pansy and they probably would have felt the shiver because it _meant something_.

Pansy snatched her hands away and quickly rose to her feet. “Right. This was a fucking waste of time. Enjoy your life, Lovegood.”

Pansy didn’t unclench her fists until they were safely back in the black cab and far, far away from Luna Lovegood and her backroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, wasn't that exciting?! Pansy is still no closer to finding out who her stalker is, and neither are we, but maybe she figured something out about herself! Anyway, time to bring our two heroes back together again in the next chapter.
> 
> Here's sneak peak for next week:
> 
> _"No, I'm entirely serious. Or maybe I'm concussed and I just didn't hear you properly. I'm going to visit a rapist and murder in a high security prison and you want to come with me?"_
> 
> _"You heard me perfectly fine, Potter. I'm tired of sitting back and letting these things happen to me. I'm- I'm," Pansy hesitated, recalling her palm reading yesterday and carefully choosing her next words. "I'm not going to let a tragedy make my life tragic and stop me from being who I am."_
> 
> _"Did you read that off of a fucking fortune cookie?"_
> 
> "Potter!"


	9. I'm Pansy Fucking Parkinson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited introduction between Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson! It actually goes exactly how you would expect. They do have one thing in common, though. Please mention in the comments if you noticed!
> 
> Endless thanks to my beta! Please shower her with love: merhippigi-riders on Tumblr.

“We got your attacker, Pansy.”

The very look on Pansy’s face -- blood draining from her cheeks and her eyes wild and wide and unbelieving because it was almost like maybe magic was real -- caused Draco to shout for the cab driver to stop.

“ _What_?”

“We got Mundungus Fletcher,” Harry’s voice cracked through the phone’s terrible service from within the car. “I just finished questioning him and--”

“We’re going to the station,” Pansy slammed her hand against the partition and the cab lurched forward toward the direction she gave.

“We -- what? Pansy, you’re supposed to stay in Daphne’s--”

“We left for brunch hours ago, Potter,” she cut him off. “Your people _need_ to get better at this.”

“After everything that happened, you’re still--”

“See you soon!”

Pansy cut off the call before Potter’s lecture could come in but she was certain she would hear it once they arrived at the station, not that she cared because for once she felt her heart flutter with anticipation -- and hope _maybe_ \-- and it felt as if everything was not lost and maybe Lovegood was right and maybe Potter wasn’t useless and maybe she wouldn’t die after all.

\---------------

“This is Hermione Granger. She’s a paralegal with the prosecution--”

“Biding time before law school,” she added unnecessarily and Pansy rolled her eyes. She could tell right away exactly what type of girl Hermione Granger was. She wasn’t _merely_ a paralegal; she was far too good to have that be the height of her achievement and she valued that intelligence over anything than anything else, as told by her sensibly heeled Mary Janes, white button-up underneath a gray jumper and her  _lady slacks_ \-- God, she was like a pre-makeover Anne Hathaway in _The Devil Wears Prada_ but worse. Pansy had never been the type to Stanley Tucci someone, but upon laying her eyes on Potter’s disaster of a friend, she suddenly wished she was.

“--local chapter of the _Protect Underprivileged Kids Everywhere_ , a pet project of mine, really--”

“Protect Unfor-- wait, isn’t that _puke_?” Draco smirked as if the brown-haired, badly dressed post-grad teacher’s pet was the best thing to walk into his life in the last week.

“It’s P.U.K.E, _actually_ , but we don’t really go by initialisms,” Hermione said in a rushed voice, like that would salvage her dignity, Pansy thought would a smirk.

“This is so besides the fucking point,” Pansy’s hands dropped to hips and she stared at Harry pointedly. Sighing, he slipped his hand around her elbow and pulled her to into a gray, depressing looking meeting room and Pansy looked over her shoulder at Daphne, who looked confused, and Draco who seemed to still be taunting Potter’s friend, all before she could even take the seat Harry offered her.

“Coffee?”

“Not that I’m not interested in ingesting that muddy water you police officers call _coffee_ , insulting every Italian since Princess Margherita of Savoy herself, but really; get to the fucking _point_.”

Potter, who looked about three seconds away from simultaneously passing out and bursting a blood vessel, slid a folder across the table for Pansy.

“Mundungus Fletcher, petty theft, in and out of prison for years, was contracted, for a grand total of 250 pounds, to wait until you were alone and retrieve a sample of your hair.”

“Just my _hair_? What about Patience?”

“He knew nothing about what happened afterwards, it seems. His was just in it for the hair. Though nice job on his face, by the way.”

Pansy opened her mouth to reply but then closed it again, cocking her head to the side and giving Potter a curious look because she was _certain_ that it was the first time he had ever given her anything resembling a compliment, though it was likely due to sleep deprivation or whatever hallucinogenic effects that came from drinking whatever he was calling _coffee_.

“He mentioned his cellmate over in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. I’m going today to see him soon and it’s our best lead so--”

“I’m going with you.”

Harry blinked.

“Are you concussed?”

Pansy glared at him.

“No, I’m entirely serious. Or maybe, really, _I’m_ concussed and I just didn’t hear you properly. I’m going to visit a rapist and murderer in a high security prison and you want to _come with me_?”

“You heard me perfectly fine, Potter. I’m tired of sitting back and letting these things happen to me. I’m-- I’m,” Pansy hesitated, recalling her palm reading yesterday and carefully choosing her next words. “I’m not going to let a tragedy make my life tragic and stop me from being who I _am_.”

“Did you read that off of a fucking fortune cookie?”

“ _Potter_!”

Pansy’s hand slapped against the table and Harry sighed, the kind of sigh that reminded her of her father saying _no, I suppose a unicorn themed party with live unicorns isn’t_ too _unreasonable, daring_.

“You won’t be in the same room with him and if you dare leave my fucking eyesight for a half a _second_ \--”

Pansy jumped to her feet before Potter could finish and clapped her hands in a manner that was far too excited for a wealthy socialite who had just negotiated to attend an interview with a sociopath in a high security prison, but she felt as if Potter was bending the rules for her, and though she didn’t entirely understand why, she was compelled to feel grateful.

“I could be your partner--”

“You're not my partner--”

“Like in Lethal Weapon--”

“We're  _not_ Riggs and Murtaugh.”

“Tango and Cash?” Harry paused then shrugged as he made his way out of the meeting room.

“Tango and Cash, _maybe_ ,” he grunted and he could feel Pansy’s smirk on the back of his neck.

\------------

(03:45 pm)  _ **theo is worried because he hasn't seen you in years**_

(03:45 pm)  _ **i think he's worried about**_ **you**

(03:47 pm)  _ **also i may be worried**_ **too**

(03:47 pm) _**also may be jealous bc you txted draco before you txted moi**_

(03:48 pm)  _ **no biggie but like o k**_

(03:48 pm)  _ **reach out yea?**_

(03:52 pm)  _ **when you get a sec obvi**_

Pansy looked down at the blinking screen of her cellphone and purposefully turned it over to ignore Blaise's messages -- _out of sight, out of mind_ , after all. She didn't know what she could even say to him, supposedly one of her best friends, whom she loved dearly and whom she was sure loved her equally are _dearly_. She couldn't just  _go on_ and pretend like -- like she wasn't --

“You’re a gypsy, aren’t you?” Pansy's falsely cheerful voice filled the car in an attempt to distract herself from her own thoughts.

The ride to the outskirts of London would be a long one and Pansy’s good spirits wouldn’t allow her to spend the entire time in silence. After all, she and Potter were partners now.

“No, I’m not -- don’t call them that, actually--”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “You lived in a troupe of travellers--”

Harry had to forcibly contain his groan. “My parents were social workers and they decided to live near a camp while I was younger.”

“You’re basically gypsy then--”

“Don’t call them -- I mean, I spent a lot of my childhood with them. A nearby family more or less adopted me after my parents died--”

“The Weasleys?” Harry gave her a curious look but Pansy only shrugged. “You’re on Wikipedia.”

“Yes, the Weasleys. They’re Irish travellers, _pavees_ , but they lived close by and I played football with the kids, actually and--”

“ _Interesting_.”

“Really?”

“Not particularly but it’s can be insightful to see how the _poorer_ side lives.”

“Do you even _think_ before these things leave your mouth?”

Pansy shrugged. “So the Weasleys--”

“My adopted family was shit and they jumped at the opportunity to send me to boarding school. The groundskeeper there is part of the same area in Ireland as them and he introduced us. I spent every single summer with them.”

“You didn’t like your boarding school?”

“I met Hermione there, as well as some others from the force. I just always felt out of place. The football was good, though.”

“And then you went into the academy--”

“What do you care?” Harry interrupted her though his voice didn’t sound angry, more like a frustrated confusion and Pansy was glad she could throw the stoic detective off of his game because her nerves were bouncing wildly and he was currently her only distraction.

“I should get to know my savior, shouldn’t I?” Pansy said, everything from her arched eyebrow to the way to uncrossed them crossed her legs fucking _radiated_ sarcasm. “You _are_ my detective after all.”

“I’m not--” Potter’s eyes glanced from her bare legs to her face again, and they flickered so quickly behind his wide glasses that she almost didn’t notice, but then again it was so hard to miss that brilliant shade green. “I’m not _your_ detective. Or your savior, for that matter. I have a job, Parkinson.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a job at it,” she muttered and suddenly that feeling of camaraderie between them disappeared just as quickly as it arrived but Pansy didn’t care. Sometimes Potter was the prick shouting at her in the elevator about what a vapid bitch she was and something he was the prick promising to take care of everything and keep her safe but she ever knew when he was either.

Either way, he was a _prick_.

“We’re here.”

Harry left the cab without another word and Pansy hesitated before following, her hand on the door handle but otherwise unmoving. Her heart began beating wildly in her chest and she wondered why the fuck she was here and what she was trying to do and what she was trying to prove and to _whom_ and _why_ because it certainly wasn’t to Potter -- though it did feel good when he said _nice job on his face, by the way_ because she could tell he had been surprised that she fought back and maybe she wanted to continue fighting back and facing a rapist and murderer was one way to do _just that_ and--

“Pansy? _Pansy_?”

She blinked and looked up, realizing then that Potter had opened the door and was kneeling next to her, his hand on her knee and her face close, _too close_ , maybe, to hers but he sounded so _so_ far away.

“Are you alright, Parkinson?”

Pansy opened her mouth to speak then closed it again, her eyes widening as she stared at Harry. He looked confused and lost and Pansy must have as well because she didn’t know why she couldn’t move; she was _Pansy fucking Parkinson_ and nothing had ever scared her before. The nurse from the hospital had mentioned possibly long-term affects of her attack, PTSD-like symptoms or panic attacks or bouts of uncertainty and _fear_ but that wasn't very  _Pansy-fucking-Parkinson-like_ and she wasn't the type of person who  _panicked --_ no, Pansy fucking Parkinson takes things in stride and gave the world a well-manicured middle finger and flipped her long hair over her shoulder as she strutted away in thousand-pound Louis V's. No, Pansy fucking Parkinson doesn't freeze wordlessly in front of Harry fucking Potter, unable to even unclench her rigid fist or blink or breath or-- or-- _  
_

“--another day, it’s okay--”

Pansy tried to say no.

“--shouldn't have let you come, anyway. Let’s get you ba--”

She formed the letters, her lips moving numbly. 

“--thought this through, I’m sorry. Let’s just--”

“ _No_ ,” she forced out breathlessly, her hand flying forward and gripping Harry by the collar, pulling him forward just as he turned away to face the confused taxi driver. “ _Now_. We can-- _I_ can do this now. _Now_.”

Harry looked conflicted, his eyes flickering back and forth from her hand gripping his collar to her widened eyes, “It's okay to be scared, Pansy. You just went through a traumatic experience--”

“Potter, I am a lot of things but first and foremost I’m Pansy _fucking_ Parkinson and I do _not_ get scared.”

She sounded so  _so_ much more certain than she felt.

So  _so_ much stronger.

For the second time that day, Harry gave Pansy a vaguely impressed look, along with something else she couldn’t pin point but then she dropped her hand from his collar and her face changed from a look of unknowing fear to one of determination and he quickly stood, dusting off his trousers, and stepping aside to let Pansy out.

“I fear for the man who ever angers you, Parkinson.”

Pansy turned and began walking towards the prison gates before Harry could see her smile.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Numb and depressed Pansy is no fun. Will the fire ever return to the heart of our leading lady? One thing is certain, like a group of musical insects, Miss Parkinson gets by with a little help from her friends.
> 
> Sneak peak:  
>  _“She’s here, isn’t she?”_  
>  _Dolohov’s question caused Harry to hesitate and he followed his stare as it shifted from his to the mirror directly behind him. Harry’s breath caught in his chest as he noted the way Dolohov’s stare went from blank to menacing, like a lion who finally set its gaze on his dinner for the evening._


	10. Comfortably Middle Class Jane Austen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter: mention of mental instability, rape, cannibalism, torture and murder.

“DI Harry Potter. Special guest, Pansy Parkinson,” Harry said to the bored looking guard behind the glass gate.

“Visiting?”

“Antonin Dolohov, solitary.”

The overweight guard typed away for a moment before grunting and passing two sticker labels with their names on it through the tiny slot under the glass. Harry handed Pansy’s hers and gave the guard a curt nod before a loud buzzing warned them of the enormous iron gate swinging open.

Pansy was on edge as they made their way through the prison. Harry warned her that it would not be an easy visit and while she wouldn’t be in the same room as the convicted murderer, she should expect the unexpected from a criminal like Dolohov. Harry described him as a deranged Ukrainian immigrant -- five years ago he was found crackling over the half-eaten body of a young woman along with a Rabastan Lestrange, though the latter was killed in a stand off. The remains were so mangled and destroyed that the investigators could never fully identify the young woman and the entire ordeal was still known as the “Jane Broggs mystery” due to Dolohov’s notorious antics in the courtroom that never lead to a clear motive nor an explanation to who exactly Lestrange was and whether there were other co-conspirators.

A shiver ran down her back when Harry pointed towards an door beside the interrogation room.

“It’s a false mirror. You’ll be able to see and hear everything,” he explained. “There’ll be someone in there with you in case--”

“I’m fine. Let’s get this over with, Potter,” she didn’t spare Harry another glance before entering the room.

Antonin Dolohov looked just as insane as Fletcher had described to the authorities. When Harry sat in front him, he could feel his very bones quiver and though there were few things in the world that still scared him, the crazed look in a senseless murderers' eyes was certainly one of them.

“Harry Potter,” he said slowly, a wide grin stretching over his lips. “Gypsy Boy Wonder.”

Feeling the pressure of Pansy’s eyes from just beyond the mirror, Harry returned with a harsh gaze. “Antonin Dolohov, cannibal of the decade.”

Dolohov tossed his head back and laughed. “ _So you say_ ,” he responded in a sing-songy voice. “You police types -- talking, talking, talking. You all talk so much.”

“Funny, I always thought that was more of a maniacal killer characteristic.”

“What’s the difference?” his grin seemingly widened.

“That’s enough of your fucking games, Dolohov. You know why I’m here.”

“But I’m having so much fun,” Dolohov pouted. “Harry Potter, won’t you play a game? I know a really good one.”

Harry ignored him and revealed a small portrait picture of Fletcher from his breast pocket. “Mundungus Fletcher. You’re aware of him, I’m assuming.”

Dolohov gave him an unblinking stare coupled with the return of his unnerving grin, “Fletchy, Fletchy. Sure. Sure, I’m aware.”

“Ex-cell mates, I hear.”

“Dear ole Dung, sure.”

“He said some interesting things about you, Antonin.”

“Sure. Sure he did. I had his cock once, you know.”

Harry grimaced. “I’m sure it was lovely.”

He shrugged, the grin unchanged. “Would have been better with a pinch salt.”

Harry tried not to seem visibly repulsed because he knew Dolohov was toying with him and this was simply one of his mind games; his game to play the crazy, unstable cannibal so the police wouldn’t know he was aware of every single fucking word that came out of his mouth.

“You gave him a job, Antonin.”

“Oi, he gave me a few jobs too, you know. Reciprocation and all that--”

“ _Enough_ ,” Harry slammed his palm against the table, his glare hardening on Dolohov though he didn’t get the response he expected -- Dolohov’s eyes merely widened, still unblinking, and his grin remained still, though Harry could swear that he revealed more of his shockingly white teeth. “You sent him to The Three Broomsticks -- a _gypsy_ pub, if I'm not mistaken -- to pick up some instructions. You sent him to terrorize this girl,” Harry took out another picture, this time a picture of Pansy Parkinson from Vogue’s fashion week issue last fall. “ _Why_?”

“She’s here, isn’t she?”

Dolohov’s question caused Harry to hesitate and he followed his stare as it shifted from his to the mirror directly behind him. Harry’s breath caught in his chest as he noted the way Dolohov’s stare went from blank to menacing, like a lion who finally set its gaze on his dinner for the evening.

“She’s so feisty. You’d think she isn’t, but she’s such a fighter. So, so much fun to hunt, I think. God, I can _smell_ her from here. Like sheer fear and sweat and _sex_. I just wish I was the one -- I wish I could--”

Dolohov suddenly pounced forward, his teeth clicking together at he took a bite out of the air. His hand and ankle cuffs preventing him from making it across the table but Harry’s chair was still sent flying backwards as he jumped to his feet, his hand shooting backward to slam on the button on the wall and call the guards into the interrogation room.

"Remember my game, Harry Potter!" Dolohov shouted as the guards fled into the room and held him down against the desk. His voice was muffled as Harry slipped out of the room, releasing a breath that had been trapped in his chest from the moment Dolohov lept up. One thing was clear: Dolohov was assuredly not the one who killed Patience Ozumba and though he had directed Fletcher to where he could pick up his orders after he was released, that was seemingly his own part in the grand scheme. _Real life doesn't have red herrings_ , Hermione would tell him, but it doesn't have coincidences either, he decided.  

From the other side of the mirror, Pansy had also jumped back when he lunged forward, but before his sudden motion, she had been frozen in fear from his words and his gaze and though Harry assured her it was impossible, she could  _feel_  him staring straight into her soul. She had jumped back so far when he lurched forward that her back hit the opposite wall of the small observation room. The air was knocked out of her lungs and she forgot to breath in again, her brain fogging up from lack of oxygen and her nails dug into her palms as she tightened her fists because, even as she watched him being dragged out of the room by three guards, his mouth drooling and biting like a rabid dog, she knew he could get loose and he would come find her and he would rape her and eat her and kill her just like the girl--

“Pansy! _Pansy_!”

Harry’s face entered her vision and Pansy was brought back to reality, eerily similar to the position they were in just a few days prior.

“Potter, stop _shaking me_ ,” she said through gritted teeth and his hands stopped their rapid movements though they didn’t dropped from her shoulders. The loud ringing in her ears begun to fade away and Pansy felt her breath returning to her lungs. She slumped against the wall behind her and closed her eyes, a feeling of calm washing over her body as she felt Harry’s presence continue to linger above her.

“He’s a sociopath, Parkinson,” Harry said in a low tone, his voice seemingly closer to her this time.

“I know,” she whispered.

“He’s locked up. For the rest of his life.”

“I know.”

“He can’t hurt you.”

“Someone will,” her voice dropped even further, so low she wasn’t even sure if she had said or only thought it.

“Pansy,” Harry paused, the silence causing Pansy to open her eyes again, her light blue eyes meeting his vibrant green. “No one is going to hurt you.”

Pansy didn’t respond but she let him wrap his hand around her wrist and lead her out of the observation room, not letting her go until they left the prison and were safely in the black cab, whizzing back to London.

\----------------------

“You should have seen her. It’s almost like she was, I don’t know, a real person. I just felt this-- this sense of _responsibility_ for her--”

“Alright, calm down, Peter Parker--”

“You weren’t there!” Harry contested, raising to his feet and turning away from Hermione as he crossed the room. “She was scared out of her mind. Patil warned me she’d have some side affects from her attack, some post-traumatic issues.”

“I’m not surprised. When has she ever had to actually worry about something in her entire life?” she crossed her arms over her chest. “And she’s practically alone. A small army of her father’s lawyers are charging through the CPS but other than the occasional phone call, there’s no word from the man himself. Her friends are constant though, and they’re shit.”

Harry grunted, filling his third mug of coffee in the span of an hour. Hermione, with her uncontrollable curls threatening to escape the precarious bun nestled on the top of her head, was swinging her feet back and forth as she perched on the edge of the meeting room table. She looked _exhausted_ and Harry knew if he didn’t let her ramble mindlessly she could just as easily pass out on the flat surface.

“I think they may share a hive-like brain. The blonde is a fucking walnut--”

“Malfoy or--”

“No, the girl. Malfoy is the human manifestation of a wobbly chair leg.”

“They all work well together, really.”

Hermione scoffed. “Like Satan’s disciples of _cattiness_.”

“You can be quite catty too, Hermione.”

A stapler aimed for his head missed by a centimeter, clipping his ear and crashing into the filing cabinet beside him.

“I remember once upon a time assaulting an officer of the law was a fairly serious offense, Granger.”

“Not unless he’s asking for it, _Potter_.”

“If you two are done flirting," their heads snapped towards the door towards a smirking Parvati Patil, "I’ve got something you may be interested in.”

Hermione snorted and slipped off the desk, smoothing out her skirt with the palms of her hands, though Harry interjected before she could respond.

“I’m assuming you saw the notes from my meeting with Dolohov.”

She nodded and tossed a thick folder onto the table. “I put this together as fast as I could. You’re looking at a serial killer, Potter. Patience isn’t his first and she won’t be his last either.”

Harry nodded and made his way back to his chair. “I guessed enough. Anything useful?”

“Something Dolohov said stuck out to me. Ah,” she flipped through the papers before stopping and stabbing her finger towards the center of a page, “ _so much fun to hunt_. Disgusting, considering, but it got me thinking. Your perp, he’s a hunter, like Dolohov. The thing is, that creep rotting in prison isn’t a mastermind. Even after he was caught it was obvious that he wasn’t the brain behind any of the crimes you got him for but there wasn’t much to go on because the only other suspect was dead. The real hunter then, your real puppet master, he’s playing this game from the sidelines.”

“He sent Fletcher to that alley--” Hermione started, earning an enthusiastic nod from Patil.

“He's probably your stalker, the guy Parkinson noticed the ther day, but the stalking isn’t because he’s in love with her or obsessed with her, at least not in the way stalkers typically are -- he’s _toying_ with her. He followed her for, what -- weeks, months before he finally went on the offensive? And even then, he sent Fletcher after her only after Parkinson noticed him, like she activated the next part of his fucked up game because--”

“He’s patient,” Hermione added.

“--all part of the game. We thought the angry attack on the housekeeper was because he didn’t find Parkinson there and he got upset--”

“But he _knew_ she wouldn’t be there,” Harry interrupted, suddenly rising to his feet. Parvati face lit up and she nodded again.

“He’s power hungry, that’s why his attack on the housekeeper was so violent. He’s reading Parkinson’s next move, and ours now, too.”

“He knew Pansy went to the police,” Hermione stared straight ahead at the blank wall, her eyes narrowing in concentration, “so he sent a lowly criminal for a rather benign attack _knowing_ it would keep her away from her flat and scare her _shitless_ \--”

“He didn’t expect her to fight back,” Harry added, “because he didn’t expect us to find Fletcher with DNA, who would obviously say anything to lessen his charge and a so-called mastermind like him wouldn’t want us finding out about Dolohov--”

“Or he _did_ expect us to find Fletcher. He choose a cowardly idiot for a reason. If he's such a mastermind, why would he risk a task to such a notorious canary?”

Harry sat back in his chair, his mind reeling from the information Patil shared. The next obvious move would be to investigate the pub he had left the instructions at for Fletcher though it now was impossible to know if he was leading an investigation or simply following the steps predetermined by a psychotic game master.

“This is meaningless without motive,” he sighed.

“What’s meaningless?”

Pansy Parkinson, in a wrinkled dress and with smudged make up and tousled hair and sleep-ridden eyes, stood at the door with a confused look on her face, her eyes darting from Harry to Hermione to the woman who looked strangely like the nurse from the hospital, before settling on Harry again.

“Ah, Parkinson. This is our profiler, Parvati Patil--"

"My sister told me about what happened," she began, her eyes widening upon setting on her and Harry immediately regretted Pansy walking in when she did -- if Padma couldn't contain her prying around Pansy's celebrity, Parvati certainly wouldn't. "I'm  _so_ sorry, I saw on Twitter that you were wearing the _Valentino--"_

Harry rose to his feet, cutting Parvati off. “How was your nap?”

Pansy frowned, her eyebrows furrowing together as she gave Parvati a wary look but otherwise ignored her. Granger's presence was already fucking enough without a _fan_ being added to the mix. “You call that a resting room,” she grumbled quietly as she made her way across the room to collapse in Harry’s empty seat. “It was a padded cell with black curtains.”

“You could have gone with Greengrass.”

“I'm not an idiot, Potter," Pansy stopped short of recoiling in disgust as her eyes fell on her reflection and she got the first look at her haphazard exterior. "You would have left me behind when you went to go investigate the pub.”

“What makes you think--”

“I’ve seen Inspector Morse, Potter,” Pansy held up a hand to interrupt him before turning to examine her blurry reflection again and thread her fingers through her short locks, using her palm to force it lay flat against her head, then moving on to wipe away the smudged eye makeup that had made its way down her face. Considering the sleeping arrangements for the Scotland Yard staff, Potter’s daily ruffled attire made so much more sense now. “I'm all for hightailing it across the river in hot pursuit of a vicious murderer, opera blaring from the speakers, a cigar dangling from my lips, my dear intrepid yet dimwitted Lewis by my side--”

Pansy swirled around dramatically in her seat, swiping the last smudge of mascara from under her eye and flashing a wicked, lipstick-less smile to Harry.

“Parkinson. _Inspector_ Parkinson.”

“I’m Sargent Lewis in this scenario?” Harry answered with an amused voice, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the door frame, a dauntless half-grin on his face that made Pansy want to shake him for responding to her presence with such a cavalier demeanor.

“Pansy,” Hermione started, using the voice she typically reserved for discussing payment plans with people who couldn’t afford private lawyers. “That’s not really how policing works.”

“Listen, you comfortably middle class _Jane Austen_ \--”

“That’s _oddly_ specific--”

“--stick to tapping away for your paperwork. I’m done sitting back and watching this happen to me. Besides, we can be properly Morse- _esque_ and take my Jaguar,” she winked at Harry because if there was one thing she knew about men -- from a pompous only child to an orphan raised in a Gypsy camp -- is they all loved fast fucking cars.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very heavy chapter! Obviously I tried to lighten up towards the end because, really, that's the kind of thing Pansy Parkinson would do, but I hope you guys are getting the hint that all the kids are not all right.
> 
> Sneak Peak:
> 
> _“Do you like the White Stripes?” Harry asked after three stop lights in silence._  
>  _“Who?” she asked in a bored voice because she knew the only thing that upset a man more than not graciously accepting one of their gallant compliments was not knowing which shitty fucking 90s bands they loved._


	11. Little Gypsy Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kindness isn't in Pansy's character, and that much is obvious in this chapter. However, our leading lady may have more depth than she lets on. Come here, [come closer], take my hand, and let's take this journey together, shall we?
> 
> (Also I such and I'm so so so sorry for taking FOREVER to post this! I'm back on my regular schedule now and we're about to get weekly on this shit again)

“ _This is fucking insane.”_

Pansy tightened her scarf around her head, tightened her fist around the door handle, and tightened her lips into a fierce frown as Potter veered around another left turn. His eyes had lit up at the sight of her father's gift -- a cherry red Jaguar XK convertible. The fact that he moaned at the name of the car before she even fully presented it to him being evidence enough that her original suspicion was right, though if it hadn't been for his excitement she wouldn't have let him drive it in the first place. Now she needed to face the consequences for her idiotic gesture of kindness. It was the type of thing someone like _her_ didn’t do for other people and she wasn’t sure why she even extended the olive branch to Potter.

“You know if you keep going this fast, we’ll get there sooner and you won’t have as much time to drive it,” she shouted over the wind, her eyes widening behind her thick-rimmed sunglasses.

Harry dramatically slowed and turned to Pansy with a wide grin, a look she had never seen on his face and it was… _endearing_ , like seeing a poor person win the lottery. “This is fucking insane. Five-liter V8 engine, the adaptive dynamics suspension -- fucking _Christ_ , this _leather_ \-- and the audio system, 525 watt--"

“Bowers and whatever, yes, you already fucking told me,” she rolled her eyes and pointed forward when the light changed though she immediately wished she hadn’t when the car jerked forward then stalled. Harry swore and shook the gear stick wildly until it lurched forward again then screeched away.

“How the hell did you get a Jaguar, anyway?”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “My father doesn’t have emotions. He has _money._ ”

He stayed quiet for a few minutes and the silence made Pansy’s skin itch. He did that often and it always bothered her because she had no idea how the raven-haired, four-eyed detective could be so comfortable in silence while she squirmed in her seat waiting to see who would speak first. One part of her wanted to blurt out some nonsense to end the mindless torture of waiting while the other never wanted Harry to think she needed his conversation or, heaven forbid,he ever thought that he made _her_ feel uncomfortable.

No. Never.

If it were anyone else, Pansy would feel fine. After all, she had made lesser men wither under her silent stare. Harry was different, however. He was disappointingly exceptional. Pansy _liked_ having the upper hand in tense moments but she could practically feel him _thinking_ as they sat in silence and she could feel the wheels in his head turning and she could feel him dissecting and _analyzing_ and it made her skin itch. Perhaps this was how others felt when she put them under her judgmental microscope and while it certainly didn’t feel good on the other side, she refused to lose.

“Fucking -- sorry, fuck,” he swore under his breath as the car faltered once more and Pansy was thrust out of her thoughts. Still, she rolled her eyes to the heavens and Gods above because _Jesus Christ_ she was going to die in this stupid birthday gift.

“Potter, stop--” she swatted his hand away and jerked the gear into two different positions then gripped Harry’s wrist and forced his hand onto the wheel. “ _Drive._ You don’t have to test all 155 miles per hour at once.”

She tried not to look too bumptious as Harry’s disposition visibly soured and he steadied his eyes forward but it was _so difficult_ because rarely was Pansy the one to outmaneuver someone in a moving vehicle -- she had half of London’s taxis on speed dial after all -- but she _did_ know luxury cars, her father’s first love.

“Do you like the White Stripes?” Harry asked after three stop lights in silence and Pansy nearly smiled because this time the silence got to _him._ It was just odd -- they were irrevocably tied together through misfortune and stress and, you know, tragedy and most people would revel in having a partner to go through the turmoil with. Not them, though. Even if the outright animosity had dissipated, the _illusion_ of hate was all Pansy needed and she planned to live up to that.

“Who?” she asked in a bored voice because she knew the only thing that upset a man more than not graciously accepting one of their gallant compliments was not knowing which shitty fucking 90s bands they loved.

Harry was disappointingly unexceptional.

“The White Stripes!” he repeated incredulously. “Well, you _are_ young--”

“You’re four years older than me!”

" _On the stand, near her hand was a candy cane; black rum, sugar cane, dry ice and something strange!_ " he shouted in a manner Pansy assumed may have been singing, but she couldn’t be sure. “That really doesn’t ring a bell?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about a band, not the sound of crows devouring a small family of prairie dogs.”

“ _Funny,_ ” Harry replied sourly and they spent the rest of the ride in silence and Pansy felt as if she had won though she didn’t know why.

_**s f g** _

The little boy, perhaps no older than nine with mud smudged on his chin and a bit forcing his hair to stick up, stared up at Harry unblinkingly. Pansy stood several steps behind him, her hand covering her mouth as she contained her laughter at Potter’s terrible attempt to communicate with a small human.

“Ah,” Harry cleared his throat and leaned down, balancing his weight by securing his hands just above his knees, becoming nearly eye level with the little boy. “Your mother perhaps? And older sibling or -- I can’t speak to children,” he looked over his shoulder as her as if to explain and Pansy rolled her eyes.

“That’s obvious,” she snorted.

“No, I mean--” he sighed and straightened again, his cheeks reddening awkwardly -- god forbid _Ace Ventura_ reveal an imperfection, “--without a parent or guardian present. I can’t _speak_ to them.”

Pansy rolled her eyes, walked past Harry and, with her hands on her hips, she gave the small boy a pointed look, “Get a grown up, will you? Your mum or whoever, let’s go--” she gave him a light tap on the head to send him off and his face broke into a grin before he ran off. “Children like me, I think,” she continued, looking back at Harry.

“When do _you_ ever interact with children?” he scoffed, taking a seat on one of the high bar stools. The pub had been closed when they arrived, which was odd for a Thursday evening, but the front door had been propped open by a cleaning crew of some sort.

“My father has had five wives, Potter. I have siblings.”

Harry twirled his pen around his fingers and looked straight ahead and Pansy didn’t speak either because she knew she more or less was the perfect candidate for _only child syndrome_ but if he thought that he obviously hasn’t spent enough time with Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. She thought maybe that was something he should have known prior to beginning his investigation, but of course he hardly cared before a dead body appeared on her floor.

“What’dya want?” a booming voice tore through the silence and Harry was on his feet in seconds.

“Rosmerta Lee,” Harry returned to his feet and held out his hand for the wary bartender. “I’m Harry Potter, DI with Scot--”

“I know who you are, Potter,” she walked past his outstretched hand and retreated to her place behind the counter. “Everyone knows ‘bout _Harry Potter_ , the boy detective.”

Pansy pressed her lips together and looked away from Harry and the middle aged firecracker for a moment to quietly continue her giggles. Finally, someone who didn’t bow at Saint Potter’s feet, though Pansy could never have guessed that she and Rosmerta Lee would share _anything_ in common. The tan-faced bartender was wearing a floor length skirt that looked like it had seen better days in the 90s, her make-up was well-done but _dramatic_ , and her wrists were weighed down by large, tacky golden bangles. From her grubby trainers to her greasy, waist-length dark hair, Pansy had never interacted in such a way with **_such_ ** a character before.

“I’m, ah, and this is Pansy Parkinson my,” Harry hesitated for a moment, his mind working wildly as he thought about something Pansy could be besides the _victim,_ though he recovered quickly, “associate. We just have a few questions.”

Pansy arched an eyebrow. She was his _associate._ Fucking Tango and Cash, she thought to herself before mentally rejoining the conversation.

“--don’t know anything about no Mundungus Fletcher. He took those packages out of here after a coupla days, I didn’t see anything--”

“Rosmerta,” he held up his hands, “I’m not here about Fletcher, exactly. He’s in our custody but it has nothing to do with the fucking rice.”

She stopped viciously wiping down the counter and cocked her head to the side, digging her fist into her hip. “What did that boy do?”

“He chased me down a dark alley at three o’clock in the morning and cut off about thirty centimeters of my hair,” Pansy interjected, mimicking Rosmerta’s posture with her hand on her hip. The two women locked eyes for a tense moment and neither broke the silence though Pansy felt her heart beat in her chest uncontrollably. Mundungus Fletcher attacked her while she was barefoot in an alley, she repeated to herself as if it was the first time she had ever admitted it. She was assaulted when she was drunk and barefoot and weak and defenseless but she will _never_ be in that situation again -- she will _never_ be caught off guard again.

Her gaze hardened.

Harry looked at Pansy but she continued to stare ahead. Clearing his throat, he placed a hand on her shoulder and continued. “Fletcher is in serious trouble. Parkinson’s case is a top priority for the Scotland Yard and we’ve already lost life in this investigation. Between you and me, the CPS is looking to pin him as an accomplice on that murder, on top of the assault and battery charge. Mundungus could get twenty-five years.”

 _Good,_ Pansy thought. _Fucking good. Put him away for life._

The look on Rosmerta’s face told her that the bartender was of the opposite mind. She dropped the washcloth on the ground and placed her head in her hands.

“ _Idiot,”_ she groaned. “I _told_ him not to listen to that crazy Russian. But 250 pounds, he thought that was _so_ much--”

“Rosmerta,” Harry’s voice softened as he interrupted her, “the higher ups are looking for a head to put in the guillotine. Fletcher is the perfect candidate but let’s be honest, we both know _murdering_ an old African woman isn’t exactly his style. I have a couple other leads that point away from him, but I need your help.”

“What are you going to do? Once you people get your claws in one of us, you never let go!”

“That’s not true--”

“Yes, it _is_ ,” Rosmerta rounded the counter again and pointed a harsh finger at Harry’s chest. A look of indignation flashed across his face but it was quickly replaced with blankness again. “We made you, Potter, my people _made_ you when your parents died. Now look at you -- you don’t care--”

“I’ve done everything I can--”

“Just last month,” Rosmerta raised her voice to drown Harry out, “Cedric -- dear, _lovely_ , Cedric -- was a top pick for Leeds Football Club, he was about to make millions, really put his family -- his _people_ \-- on the map, show the world we aren’t so bad, the Romani people aren’t just criminals and conmen. Not two days later, _murdered_. What did you and your people do? Nothing. Just another dirty gypsy boy found dead, what does it matter? Did the world some good, you all probably thought. One done, a million more to go.”

Her voice ended in a small whimper and Pansy looked away. She didn’t know much about the plight of the Romani people in England, just that Draco’s father complained about their caravans on the nightly news and she wouldn’t mind buying one of their long, bohemian skirts for Coachella next year, and that alone made her feel unequipped to join the conversation.

“Cedric Diggory?” Harry asked after an extended silence. “He’s _dead?_ I -- I didn’t know.”

“Lucky you,” she spat.

“This area isn’t in my district. I didn’t know, and I _couldn’t_ have known--”

“Because you haven’t been back! You been sent off by the Queen herself and forgot where you came from--”

“Rosmerta, this isn’t why I came--”

“I got nothing to help you with, Potter. I don’t know nothing about a murder or your little princess here. I come in, I work, I clean and serve drinks, then I leave at night. I wasn’t privy to Mundungus’ affairs.”

The two fell silent with loud exhales. They both looked tired though it seemed for different reasons and Pansy suddenly felt bad for every time she had laughed about Harry being a “gypsy” with the others. He obviously wasn’t, though he wasn’t _not_ a gypsy either -- he was something in between, with either foot in both worlds, unable to completely fit into either.

“You had to have noticed someone you didn’t recognize coming in,” he finally said, his all policing, no fun exterior returning. “A new face who only stayed for one drink, if even that.”

Rosmerta sighed, dropping her face into her hands. “A grubby lookin’ fellow started coming in a couple weeks ago, asked about Fletcher, but he’s not one of us. Russian, maybe? Honestly, Potter, that’s all I got.”

_**s f g** _

Their drive back to the station was significantly less exciting. Pansy frowned behind her insect-like sunglasses and flower patterned headscarf while Harry drove her convertible at a determined yet unenthusiastic pace, his eyes locked on the road in front of them. The entire trip had been useless, she decided, because not only were they still clueless but Rosmerta had only succeeded in making her feel _guilty_ and making things _more_ awkward between her and Potter. It was hard to feel superior when you didn’t even know what to _say_.

“What?”

Her head snapped towards Harry again, who was attempting to put his cellphone on speaker and balance it on the tiny dashboard.

“You gotta come down here, Potter,” a garbled voice came from the tiny phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Mundungus. He’s dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed that! Again, I'm so sorry for the delay and here's a cute little ole teaser to make up for it:
> 
>  
> 
> _There was nothing else he would be able to gather from staring at the stiffening body that the forensics department wouldn’t have on his desk by Monday. He needed air, he needed to breathe, he needed to think, he needed to get away from the fucking blood._


End file.
